THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, June 13, 1996 TAG: 9606130573
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MIKE MATHER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 159 lines
Homicide investigators who had said Eddie Makdessi had no role in the murder of his wife Elise have accused him of the crime, Makdessi says.
But Makdessi, who spoke publicly Tuesday night for the first time since his wife's death on May 14, says he is innocent. He has steadfastly maintained that the story he told police is true: Elise was raped and killed by a Navy co-worker to silence her sexual-harassment complaints. Eddie Makdessi then shot the man, he said.
Makdessi, 32, said that, during a lengthy conversation with Detective Paul Yoakam at police headquarters Tuesday, the detective accused him of killing his 31-year-old wife after finding her at home with another man. According to Makdessi, Yoakam implied that Elise Makdessi was having affairs at work.
Eddie Makdessi said that Yoakam's statements aren't true.
``My wife was a good woman,'' he said. ``They're trying to make her out to be some kind of slut, and she wasn't.''
Police have not charged Eddie Makdessi with a crime. He was allowed to leave the Detective Bureau after speaking with Yoakam for several hours.
No one in the Detective Bureau would speak about the case on Wednesday except to say the investigation is ongoing.
Makdessi said he's furious at the way city detectives and Navy investigators have handled the case. He said he believes authorities have not vigorously pursued those involved in his wife's alleged sexual harassment.
After the interview with Yoakam, Makdessi agreed to speak about the bloody confrontation that left two people dead in the couple's Lake Front Circle apartment.
On Tuesday, as he walked through the apartment where the crime happened, Makdessi described and showed what happened on that night:
Eddie and Elise Makdessi had planned a trip to New Hampshire to visit relatives. Elise, an air-traffic controller at Oceana Naval Air Station, was granted four days of leave beginning May 14, the night she was killed.
But for some reason, her leave was suddenly canceled. She was devastated. According to Eddie Makdessi, that was the last in a series of work problems his wife experienced at the base.
Eddie said Elise had told him that she had been raped on the base and had been subjected to repeated sexual harassment by several co-workers. When she went to a superior, she was told she would get in trouble for making such a complaint, Eddie said.
So, according to Eddie, Elise spent several weeks secretly documenting in notes and on videotape the rape and harassment allegations. She was preparing for a possible lawsuit and had contacted an attorney, her husband and her friends said.
She stored at least one videotape copy in a safety-deposit box. Police now have those notes and tapes, and have confirmed that the material details rape and sexual-harassment allegations.
When her leave was canceled, Elise decided to publicly pursue her case, Eddie said.
To console and comfort her that night, Eddie took his wife to dinner at Aldo's Ristorante on Laskin Road.
``We had a bottle of wine and a romantic dinner,'' he said.
Then, according to Eddie, the couple returned to their second-floor apartment on Lake Front Circle.
Elise entered first, followed by Eddie, who disarmed a burglar alarm just inside the front door.
Suddenly, Eddie was hit from behind and knocked out.
He tumbled forward, he said, and thinks he hit his head or elbow on a wall where a piece of plaster is now missing. Two clear plastic containers of dinner leftovers fell to the floor. The containers and food, now moldy, are still in the couple's apartment, next to a large sectional sofa.
He regained consciousness on the floor of the apartment's small rear bedroom. His hands were bound with a black cord, he said.
He saw his wife tied to the posts of their king-size bed. A man was raping her.
``I heard her say, `Please, why are you doing this to me? Please stop,' '' Eddie said. Then, the man stabbed her.
Eddie wriggled free and lunged for a night stand, where his wife kept a
The man on the bed, a co-worker of Elise's named Quincy Brown, attacked Eddie. Eddie fired once and hit Brown in the chest. Brown spun around, doubled over, and collapsed to his knees in the bedroom's doorway. Brown's face hit the carpet, Eddie said, where there is now a large, brown smear.
Eddie said he saw a gash on his wife's stomach and tried to staunch the bleeding with his hand. Then, he saw that her throat had been slit. He picked up the phone and called for an ambulance and police.
He looked for the knife to cut her free. He couldn't find it. Brown, still holding the knife, suddenly rose from the floor.
Eddie said he grabbed Brown's arm and was cut on the wrist. He pumped several bullets into Brown's chest. Brown again collapsed. He never moved again.
Then police arrived.
In the days that followed the killings, city and Navy investigators reviewed the documents and videotapes found among Elise's belongings.
Investigators initially focused on the men Elise named in her records. Brown's name was included in the notes, investigators said.
Eddie Makdessi said that Yoakam, the homicide detective, told him that five men named by his wife had failed polygraph examinations, but then they admitted to having affairs with Elise. Yoakam said the men were cleared, according to Eddie.
Yoakam implied that Eddie knew about his wife's affairs, which was the motive to murder her, Eddie said. Eddie denies that, and said he doesn't believe that his wife was unfaithful.
It isn't clear what turned detectives' attentions back to Eddie Makdessi, but Makdessi said that Yoakam alluded in the interview to three things:
First, Brown's jacket was found casually draped over the back of a living-room chair. Eddie said that Yoakam implied that this isn't consistent with a frenzied attack on two people. But Makdessi said he can't imagine why Brown even wore a jacket on a night so warm that Makdessi went to dinner in short sleeves. Unless, Makdessi said, the jacket was worn to conceal a weapon.
Second, detectives told Makdessi, they uncovered evidence of marital problems between the couple. But, Makdessi said, the detectives asked the couple's acquaintances leading questions like: ``We know they were having marital problems. Do you have any examples?'' That led the acquaintances to exaggerate ordinary arguments, Makdessi said. Their marriage was sound, he said.
Third, the couple's answering-machine tape is apparently missing. Makdessi said he doesn't know who took it. He believes its absence means that someone else besides Brown was in the apartment. Police know that the last place Brown called on his cellular phone was the Makdessi apartment. Yoakam implied that Makdessi took the tape, Makdessi said.
Tuesday night, Makdessi and a friend were packing the couple's valuables and loading them into a Ryder truck.
Makdessi said the killings have left him depressed and scared, and he is spending most of his time with relatives in New England.
The mattress in the couple's bedroom is still mottled with a large bloodstain. Police had recently returned the blood-spattered bed-frame rails, now marked with orange bio-hazard stickers.
A thin, gray outline on the floor near the bedroom closet marks where police found the gun. The bare lightbulb of a bedside lamp illuminates a web of twine taped to the rear bedroom wall by forensics technicians. The four white lines trace the angles of the blood spatters.
Eddie Makdessi said he doesn't know what he'll do now.
``This all makes me so angry,'' he said. ``They're saying bad things about my wife, and I don't believe them. I loved her and I miss her.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Eddie Makdessi says detectives now believe he killed his wife,
Elise, and one of her co-workers on May 14.
Graphic
CHRONOLOGY
May 14: Police are called to a Lake Front Circle apartment, where
they find Elise Makdessi and a co-worker, Quincy Brown, dead. Elise
Makdessi's husband, Eddie, tells police during an interview at
police headquarters that the couple was ambushed at the front door.
Eddie Makdessi says Brown killed Elise Makdessi just before Eddie
Makdessi grabbed a gun and killed Brown. Police suspect the
husband, often the first suspect in such a case.
May 15: Police say evidence appears to back Eddie Makdessi's
story, and detectives say publicly he is not a suspect.
May 17: Detectives say Elise Makdessi's personal records indicate
that she had been raped and sexually harassed at work. They begin
investigating the people named in the records. Investigators say her
complaints may have been a motive for murder.
June 6: Navy investigators say that, despite a widespread
investigation, they have found no formal records or other evidence
to support the allegations made in Elise Makdessi's private notes.
June 11: Eddie Makdessi consents to another interview with
Detective Paul Yoakam at police headquarters. According to Makdessi,
Yoakam blames him for the crime. Makdessi denies the accusation and
has not been charged.
KEYWORDS: MURDER SHOOTING by CNB