Case snapshot
Anne Marie Fahey, a 30-year-old scheduling secretary for Delaware Governor Tom Carper, disappeared on June 27, 1996, after dinner with Thomas Capano, a prominent Wilmington attorney. Their secret affair, hidden from nearly everyone in her life, became the center of a murder investigation when her body was never found. Capano was convicted of her murder in 1999, but he took the exact location of her remains to his grave.
The hidden relationship
Anne Marie Fahey worked in the governor’s office, well-liked and ambitious. She came from a working-class Irish Catholic family in Wilmington, the youngest of six children raised by a single father after their mother died when Anne Marie was nine. She was building a careful, deliberate life.
Thomas Capano was everything she was not. Wealthy, connected, married with four daughters. He was a former prosecutor, a well-known attorney whose family owned construction and real estate businesses across Delaware. He was 47 when they began their affair in 1993.
The relationship stayed hidden. Capano bought her gifts, took her to expensive restaurants outside Wilmington, helped her with rent. Anne Marie confided in almost no one. She was also dating Michael Scanlan, a man closer to her own age and background, someone she could introduce to her family.
By early 1996, Anne Marie was trying to end it. She told friends she felt controlled. He called constantly, showed up unannounced, pressured her to keep seeing him. She wanted out. He wouldn’t let go.
The last night
On the evening of June 27, 1996, Anne Marie left work around 6 p.m. She had dinner plans with Capano at a Philadelphia restaurant called Panorama. Friends later said she seemed reluctant but felt obligated to go.
They were seen together at the restaurant. Witnesses recalled them eating and talking. After dinner, Capano claimed he drove her back to her apartment in Wilmington. He said she went inside and that was the last time he saw her.
Anne Marie Fahey never showed up for work the next day. She didn’t call. Her apartment was mostly undisturbed, though her bed appeared slept in and her shoes were by the door. Her car was still parked outside. She simply vanished.
The investigation turns to Capano
Anne Marie’s siblings reported her missing immediately. Investigators quickly learned about Capano. Friends mentioned his name carefully, aware of his reputation and influence. When police interviewed him, he was calm, cooperative, insistent that he had dropped her off safely.
Investigators kept digging. They found receipts, phone records, and eventually testimony from people Capano had pulled into his orbit. One of those people was Deborah MacIntyre, another woman Capano had been seeing. He had asked her to buy a cooler for him in the days after Anne Marie disappeared. She did, without asking why.
The cooler became central to the case. Prosecutors believed Capano killed Anne Marie in his home, placed her body in the cooler, and dumped it in the Atlantic Ocean with the help of his brother, Gerry Capano. Gerry later testified that Thomas had asked him to take his boat out that night, and that they threw a large cooler overboard, weighted down with a chain and anchor.
No body was ever recovered. The cooler was never found. The chain and anchor were purchased by Capano shortly before Anne Marie disappeared.
The trial
Thomas Capano was arrested in November 1997, more than a year after Anne Marie vanished. His trial began in October 1998 and lasted nearly four months. The prosecution’s case was built on circumstantial evidence: the cooler, the boat trip, the receipts, and the testimony of Gerry Capano, who had been granted immunity.
Capano’s defense argued there was no body, no murder weapon, and no physical proof Anne Marie was dead. But the jury heard about his obsession, his lies, and the cold sequence of purchases and phone calls that pointed to premeditation.
On January 17, 1999, Thomas Capano was convicted of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to death, later commuted to life in prison without parole after Delaware’s death penalty statute was revised.
Aftermath and silence
Capano never confessed. He gave conflicting stories over the years, at one point implicating Deborah MacIntyre, claiming Anne Marie died accidentally during an argument and that MacIntyre shot her. Prosecutors dismissed the claim as another manipulation.
He died in prison in 2011 from heart disease. Anne Marie Fahey’s body has never been found. Her family held a memorial service, but there was no grave, no closure in the traditional sense.
The case became a symbol of how power and secrecy can conceal violence. Anne Marie was young, vulnerable in ways she didn’t fully recognize, involved with a man who saw her as something he owned. When she tried to leave, he made sure no one else could have her either.
Where to dive deeper
- Book: “And Never Let Her Go” by Ann Rule
- Book: “Fatal Embrace” by Robert Brandt
- Documentary: “Deadly Affairs” (Investigation Discovery)
- Podcast: “The Murder of Anne Marie Fahey” (“Moms and Murder”, Audiochuck)
