IT’S BEEN 31 years since Merrimack teenagers Diane
Compagna and Anne Psaradelis were found murdered in Candia,
but even in retirement, Detective Lt. Joseph Horak has refused
to close the book on the case.
To the contrary.
Lieutenant Horak has just written a book about the case. He
did it on his own time and on his own dime and in that book,
called “Justice Denied,” he names names.
All but the name of his prime suspect, that is.
“But we know who he is and he knows we know who he is,”
Horak said. “Everything in the book is 100 percent factual.
The places they went, the names of the witnesses we questioned
in the case, the names of his friends, even the name of the
man we believe was with him when he committed the murders.
The unsolved murder of two
teenaged girls still haunts retired Candia Police Chief
Robert Baker, left, and investigator-turned-author
Joseph Horak, who revisited the scene of the crime in
Candia this week. (JOHN CLAYTON/UNION
LEADER) |
“His name is the one
name we couldn’t use in the book — people said he could sue me
— but anybody from Merrimack who reads it will know who he
is.”
Even without that name, the book is an extraordinary thing.
It’s a soft-cover, hard-core testament to the dedication of
two retired cops — Lt. Horak and Candia Police Chief Robert
Baker — who vowed long ago that the murder of two innocents
would not go unpunished.
They’re still trying to live up to that vow.
That’s why they were trudging through the woods off New
Boston Road in Candia last week. They were heading back to
visit the murder scene. Even they can’t remember how often
they’ve been there.
It’s just over a mile from Chief Baker’s home — half that,
as the crow flies — and as they surveyed the scene, you got
the sense that they were seeing exactly what bird hunter Bob
Lupien from Manchester stumbled upon back on Sept. 29, 1973.
What he found was a body.
Lupien quickly left the woods. He jumped in his 1971
Volkswagen and headed to the juncture of Routes 107-A and
101-B. That’s where he found Candia Police Sgt. John Morse
directing traffic toward the Deerfield Fair.
It was 2:15 p.m.
Within hours, the scene off New Boston Road was abuzz with
activity. A second body was discovered. Candia and Auburn
police were on hand. So were State Police investigators and
the Mobile Crime Lab. The Rockingham County medical examiner
was summoned. Even Gov. Meldrim Thomson stopped by to be
briefed.
The scene was cordoned off for the night.
The next day, using dental records, the bodies were
identified as 15-year-old Diane Compagna and 15-year-old Anne
Psaradelis. The two friends — each having told their parents
they were sleeping at the home of the other — had been missing
from their Merrimack homes since July 12.
Joe Horak’s been on the case since that July day.
That gave him a six-week head start on all of the other
investigators, so when they were found to be murdered, he
figured he could hit the ground running.
He’s been running in place ever since.
“From the 12th of July, I was with the Compagna and
Psaradelis families,” he said. “I would finish a tour of duty,
get a call to come in and Mr. Compagna would ask me to go out
and look for the girls.
“We’d do that, drive around Merrimack for four or five
hours and when we’d get back, Mr. Psaradelis would ask me to
do the same thing. I don’t know how many times we did that,
but after they found the bodies, when we were at the scene one
day, Chief Baker and I just said we’d finish the case if it
took a year, or two, or five.”
Or 31?
“You have to understand,” Chief Baker said. “I had four
murder cases in Candia. Three ended in convictions. This is
the one that’s left on the table. I’d just like to clear the
slate.
“And just so you know it’s alive in the minds of more than
just me and Joe,” he added, “I got a call last week from a
cousin of one of the girls. We owe the people in this
community the satisfaction of saying, ‘We got the guy who did
this.’”
Both hope the book will help.
As for Lt. Horak’s writing style?
It would be less than candid to describe it as anything
above the standard prose found in police reports, but in that
vein, there is the same kind of eye for detail that can be
found in the literary genre known as “police procedurals.”
Hence, the clinical descriptions.
The descriptions of acrid-smelling crime scenes and
skeletal human remains that burned impressions into the
pine-needled floor of the woods are devoid of emotion. It’s
the way cops are taught to write — just the facts, ma’am — but
to the civilian, the layperson, the underlying horror is hard
to miss in Lt. Horak’s prose.
“. . . the first body was found naked with blue denim
trousers under the left arm, and a bra and panties only one
foot beyond the right hand. The dungarees and bra had not been
removed from the second body, but the white shirt was partly
off . . .”
”It appears that this girl was running for her life. I
would say she was about to go over that stone wall when she
was grabbed from behind and brought down to the ground. It
doesn’t appear that either girl put up a struggle.”
Both cops struggle with those images every day.
They would like to think that others share their struggle,
but retirement and turnover have thinned the ranks of those
who were involved from the outset. Chief Baker and Lt. Horak
also question the resolve of those who’ve come on since.
“What we need is a law enforcement agency, a state law
enforcement agency, to give us a hand on this,” Chief Baker
said. “You can’t ruffle feathers — if you do that, forget
about it — but the answer to our prayers would be if the state
would enlist our services so we could bring this thing to a
close.”
Horak is not above ruffling feathers, however.
“Why are they not picking up on the case?” he asked. “It’s
because we’re two retired policemen and they don’t want to
look bad. That’s fine. Don’t use us.
“I know we’re dealing with higher authority. The State
Police don’t like being told this ‘n’ that, and there always
seems to be somebody who doesn’t want to listen to someone
lower on the food chain, but it’s not just about fulfilling
our promise.
“It’s about justice,” he said. “That’s why I dedicated the
book not just to Diane and Anne, but to all the innocent
victims in our society.”
John Clayton’s latest book is a collection of
veterans-related stories titled “New Hampshire: War and
Peace.” His e-mail address is [email protected]
