Croteau Daniel Thomas - Death of an altar boy: the unsolved murder of Danny Croteau

ALSO BY E.J. FLEMING
AND FROM MCFARLAND

Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites: Seventeen Driving Tours with Directions and the Full Story, 2d ed. (2015)

Paul Bern: The Life and Famous Death of the MGM Director and Husband of Harlow (2009)

Wallace Reid: The Life and Death of a Hollywood Idol (2007; softcover 2013)

The Fixers: Eddie Mannix, Howard Strickling and the MGM Publicity Machine (2005)

Carole Landis: A Tragic Life in Hollywood (2005)

COMPILED BY E.J. FLEMING

The Movieland Directory: Nearly 30,000 Addresses of Celebrity Homes, Film Locations and Historical Sites in the Los Angeles Area, 1900Present (McFarland 2004; softcover 2010)

Jefferson, North Carolina

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE

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e-ISBN: 978-1-4766-3203-2

2018 E.J. Fleming. All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Front cover image of Danny Croteau (courtesy Joseph Croteau); background cemetery cross 2018 OlafSpeier/iStock

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Without the many people who spoke to me, this would not have been possible. I cannot adequately express my gratitude to all those who talked about their most painful memories, events that cant be forgotten, no matter how much they wish they could. Special thanks to those who did so on the condition of anonymity. I apologize to anyone I failed to mention. Carl and Bunny Croteau graciously answered difficult questions and encouraged me to tell Dannys story from the time we first spoke in 2004. Dannys brother Joe took every one of my hundreds of calls and was generous with advice, stories, photos, and often-painful remembrances of Danny and Richard Lavigne. Thanks also to his other brother, Carl Jr. The book would have been impossible without their input and help.

R.C. Stevens provided invaluable information and background. He unearthed more about Dannys life and death in ten years than four sets of investigators in 35. Bill Zajac courageously penned hundreds of newspaper stories critical of a powerful Churchstories nobody wanted to write, accounts that eventually took down a bishop. Bill offered enthusiastic assistance, and invaluable files, since the first call the day I decided to tell the story. Warren Mason, whose anger forced the Springfield diocese to face its criminal past, provided direction and important recollections. My friend Darby OBrien offered invaluable counsel for my Phoebe Prince book and did so again here, as did Luke Gelinas, another Phoebe colleague.

A special thanks to several people in the middle of Dannys story, from the beginning. Drew Nicastro courageously discussed events Im sure he would rather have kept to himself. Sandra Tessiers details of Richard Lavignes relationship with her and her family were critical to unmasking a suspect never investigated. Jack Downing offered stories that helped define the role of a bishop in all this. Carol Mazzarino, daughter of a central character in Dannys story, provided invaluable help. I am grateful also to John Stobierski, who fought legal battles for more than 75 cleric abuse victims; longtime Croteau family lawyer F. Michael Joseph; Mike Rezendes and Alan Wirzbicki of the Boston Globe Spotlight team, instrumental in exposing the Churchs clergy abuse problem, for their assistance; and Sgt. Mark St. Germaine of the Rensselaer (NY) Sheriffs Department for trying to find records of an obscure 1971 arrest.

Joe Fitzgeralds remembrances of a long-ago high school classmate were central to the story, and Brian Fitzgerald offered invaluable advice and stories of life in his childhood neighborhood. To our old and dear friends, Bill and Linda Campbell, again, thanks. Once more, Linda offered invaluable assistance deciphering the psychological aspects behind people and accounts, and Bill provided dozens of Red Sox tickets over the years and took my mind off the dreadful stories by dragging me from my keyboard to play golf. Our family priest, Father Hugh Crean, suffered through hundreds of morning Masses with my brother and I as his altar boys when I was Dannys age. He showed me a very different Church and later offered insight into its often-bizarre workings. Rest in peace, Father. A special word of thanks to Robert M. Kelly for his book-length treatise on the history of the crisis in the Springfield diocese that can be found at www. springfielddiocese.blogspot.com/2009/04.

My mother used to cross herself and plead, Oh, please, E.J., please dont write that book, but instilled in me a dose of Boston Irish Catholic Bad Attitude Syndrome that still makes me question everything and seek the truth. I miss her. My father, despite lifelong friendships with all of the principals involved in Dannys stories from the 1970s until today, encouraged me to write this book. Love and thanks to you both.

As always, none of this would be possible without Barbs support. Forty-five years later, she still lets me pretend Im a writer.

July 2004. I was on the porch of my fathers place looking out over Buzzards Bay at Cuttyhunk Island in the distance when a Sunday Boston Globe headline returned me to my last year of high school in small-town Massachusetts. CROTEAU FILES TO BE OPENED. Underneath Altar Boys 72 Slaying, was a school picture like every one of mine and those of my brothers and sisters. The boy looked 13 or 14, junior high-ish. His was the unmistakable look of Catholic school kid, a particular veneer recognized only by those experienced in that particular confinement. He appeared impish, nose dotted with freckles, red hair askew. I didnt know Danny Croteau. I was a senior in high school when he was killed, likely entangled in some insignificant crisis to pay much heed. I only vaguely remembered a Springfield kid found dead in the river.

East Longmeadow, our leafy New England home, was ten minutes away but worlds apart from Dannys Sixteen Acres neighborhood in the gritty factory city of Springfield. His was a blue-collar, working-mans suburb of a city dominated by the mob and the Catholic Church. My crowd was certainly not as tough as his, nor were we allowed to run the streets at night like he did. Though I was 17 to his 14, Danny lived older than me. Our teen lives were poles apart. Mine revolved around a woodsy subdivision, a mother who cleaned, shopped and cooked, and a father who worked in an office. Dannys weary mother corralled seven kidsfive of them teenage boyswhile his father worked two and three jobs.

My days were full of sports and exploring the woods with a series of English Setters named Freckles, nights spent ignoring homework to watch television. Dannys days included the same neighborhood sports, but his nights included hitchhiking around Springfield and hanging with a gang of local troublemakers and thieves who drank, smoked, and did drugs.