Before storming out of his pad, Rosario alleged, Berry said she already had recruited someone to confront Fenzau. Rosario identified the cohort as Vito Abbate, a 66-year-old who worked as a doorman at several South Beach nightclubs hosting gay parties.
Fenzau's friends theorize that sometime between the late hours of June 6 and the early morning of June 7, Goode and Valeri allowed Berry and Abbate inside Fenzau's house. When Fenzau realized his so-called friends were there to rob him, he stood his ground. At some point, the confrontation turned violent. "I heard these people were cleaning out Will's house as he lay there dying," Edwards says. "They even stuffed CDs and clothes into duffle bags."
Courtesy of Lori Grande
William Fenzau and his younger sister, Lori Grande, were inseparable until his death in 2005.
C. Stiles
Tom Edwards met Fenzau in an online chat room for men seeking men.
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In a 2007 Miami Herald article about the murder, Detective Tapanes said he believed Goode and Abbate killed Fenzau and that Valeri was involved. He did not mention Berry.
Certainly on The First 48, all signs pointed to Goode and Abbate as the killers and Berry and Valeri as accomplices. In one scene from the show, Goode sits inside a conference room answering Det. Roly Garcia's questions. Dressed in a blue long-sleeve button-down shirt, basketball shorts, and flip-flops, Goode doesn't appear distraught, despite the fact that his boyfriend was just brutally murdered. When Garcia briefs Tapanes, he immediately identifies Goode as a suspect. "He has a cut on his right index finger and scratches on his left forearm consistent with a struggle," Garcia says. What's more, Goode picked up Fenzau's mom and took her to her son's home before anyone called police. To Garcia, this is another indication of guilt: "You want someone there with you when you discover the body."
During a second interview, Goode tells cops he cut his finger with garden clippers while he was landscaping his house. Yet after Dr. Emma Law of the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner's Office studies Goode's fingers, she informs Tapanes the "cuts didn't come from yard work."
Realizing he is getting himself into more trouble, Goode tells cops he lied. It was his friend Valeri who first found the body, he says. Goode then says he took a bag of crystal meth from Fenzau's house that the cops later find inside his car. To keep Goode detained, Tapanes charges him with tampering with evidence.
The day following Fenzau's murder, Valeri shows up at the crime scene, where he is greeted by homicide detectives. The next scene shows a sobbing Valeri answering questions at Miami PD headquarters. According to his sworn statement, Valeri admits to being the first person to discover Fenzau but that he left the house because he was afraid of going back to jail since he was not supposed to be associating with known drug dealers as a condition of his bond. He didn't call 911, he says, because he knew Fenzau had drugs inside his house, so he walked over to the Chevron station on Biscayne Boulevard at 61st Street, where he called Goode, who rushed right over. Valeri tells investigators that after they both went back into the house, Goode confirmed Fenzau was dead.
As "Pack of Lies" progresses, homicide investigators interview Rosario, who points the cops to Berry. She voluntarily meets with Tapanes, who uses a tried and true TV homicide detective technique on her. The camera captures Tapanes and Berry inside the interrogation room. She denies threatening to "cut" Fenzau and denies being with Abbate. A frustrated Tapanes slams one of Fenzau's autopsy photos in front of Berry. The horrific image jolts her out of her seat. She sobs uncontrollably and tells Tapanes it was the bouncer Abbate who killed Fenzau. "He has cuts on his forearm," she says, "and another one on the finger and one on his hand."
The detectives shifted their attention to Abbate, whom they bring in for questioning. When they pick up the doorman at his apartment, the detectives find a nearly empty pack of Newport Mediums with blood specks on it. At the crime scene, they had found a Newport Medium cigarette butt. When questioned, Abbate tells investigators he had cut his finger helping a neighbor move a rug.
Two weeks after Fenzau's murder, Abbate swallowed a bunch of pills and committed suicide. He left behind a note that read, "I'm tired of the drama. I did not hurt anyone." No DNA from Abbate was found at the scene, but blood from Goode and Fenzau was found on the bedroom door handle. Saliva on the Newport cigarette butt also matched Goode.
On July 29, 2005, Tapanes charged Fenzau's former lover with murder. In the arrest report, Tapanes noted Goode killed Fenzau because his ex-boyfriend "was no longer going to provide Goode with crystal methamphetamine."
But once the cameras were gone, the case was hardly as open-and-shut as investigators had made it seem. On August 8, 2005, Goode got off on a technicality. His defense attorney, Jordan Lewin, filed a motion that his client's statements weren't admissible because police didn't read his Miranda rights until just prior to his arrest for tampering with evidence. He also argued there were other people with motive to kill Fenzau. That and the possibility of additional suspects prompted Assistant State Attorney Gary Winston to drop the charges against Goode.
