November 8, 2023 • 24 mins
A wealthy financier named Ted Ammon is relieved to be in the last stages of a bitter divorce. As he enters his mansion on a warm October day, and sees the disabled security system, he realizes his wife and her lover are plotting something terrible against him.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Murder Homes is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
It's a big house, fifty nine Middle Lane, part of
East Tampton. So you know, when you buy a house
like that, you're buying a staff of people to help
maintain it. And that's something that you notice in any
of these Hampton's houses, they really are like ships.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
That voice you just heard is Michael Schneerson, author Hampton's
Local and former Vanity Fair contributor, whose coverage of the
two thousand and eight murder at Middle Lane is how
I first came to learn about the story featured in
today's episode. As Michael says, fifty nine Middle Lane bisects
(00:41):
one of the wealthiest sections of East Tampton with huge homes.
You drive past an endless tall hedgerow and then suddenly
you catch sight of it, a six bedroom manor style home.
It's set deep on two point two exquisitely landscaped acres,
a half mile from the ultra exclusive met eat Stone
Club and a short drive to the ocean. The house
(01:04):
couldn't be more perfectly situated. In fact, just recently sold
for ten point two million dollars. Out Here among the
super wealthy, a homicide is almost unheard of. A typical
item in the local newspaper's police blodder might feature a
man who tucked a bottle of eighteen year old McCallen
under his sweatshirt at Amagansett Wine and Spirits. But on
(01:25):
October twentieth, two thousand and eight, a homicide is exactly
what took place. This is murder Holmes. I'm Matt Marinovich.
(01:57):
One of the myths of living out in the Hamptons
is that wealth buys acres and acres of replenishing silence,
But keeping a multimillion dollar home looking good sounds more
like this. On a beautiful summer day, the wealthiest enclaves
(02:19):
are noisier than Runway thirteen al at JFK workers hop
out of landscaping trucks like well oiled swat teams. But
by early fall things always start to quiet down, and
locals know it's the best time of year to be
in the Hamptons. It was during the off season when
Ted Ammon, a fifty two year old investment banker, was
(02:40):
speeding down Montauk Highway in his silver porch. He had
his two Golden Retrievers in the backseat. He was headed
to his house on Middle Lane, finally looking forward to
some peace. Ted had spent the last year of his
life on the verge of resolving a very contentious, expensive
divorce from his wife, Generosa, finally closed to his settlement,
(03:02):
but just two days later, on October twenty second, two
thousand and one, Ted Ammon's silver porch was found in
the driveway and his body was found naked in the
master bedroom, bludgeoned to death. Yellow police tape stretched around
the mansion. Barricades were placed at the entrance of the
long driveway to fend off camera crews. Suffolk County detectives
(03:23):
fanned out and interviewed neighbors, but nobody had seen anything
out of the ordinary, except for a house guest who
was staying at a neighbor's home next door to Ammon
on the night of October twentieth. The house guest said
he was putting the finishing touches on a water color
he was painting of the pond behind Ammon's home when
he heard two cars crunching down the long gravel driveway
(03:44):
of fifty nine Middle Lane. He didn't think much of it.
At night, the lights in Ammon's bedroom remained on, but
the neighbor wasn't alarmed by that either. Whose rock the
Hampton's In a town where trimmed hedgerows offered the only protection,
(04:05):
especially when home security systems could be so easily disabled,
every millionaire on Middle Lane began to wonder if their
home was next here's Michael Schneerson. Again.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
There had not been a murder, I think in three
hundred and fifty years something crazy like that, and that
was maybe the only one. You know, It's a very peaceful,
idyllic neighborhood of grand homes where everybody feels very safe.
So it was really a shock, especially considering the brutality
of the circumstances.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Ted's business partner had found him. He had grown concerned
when Ted missed his morning meeting in Manhattan, and he
flew out to East Tampton by helicopter. When he entered
the home, he was immediately greeted by Ammon's agitated dogs.
He made his way from room to room, calling Ted's
name as he climbed up to the second floor. It
was there he discovered Ammon's naked body in the master bedroom.
(04:58):
Police arrived minutes later. In the home was sealed off.
The medical examiner would later determine that he had been
sadistically tortured with a stun gun before he suffered thirty
blows to his head with a blunt object. As news spread,
rumors started to swirl a naked man had been seen
running down Middle Lane. Gossip centered on a gay cruising
(05:19):
area at two mile Hollow Beach just a short drive away.
There were whispers about ted Emmon being a closet homosexual.
Maybe he'd engage in some rough sex with a stranger
and things a gun out of hand, but this rumor
was quickly dispelled when police confirmed that the naked man
had been seen around eleven am on Friday, October eighteenth,
(05:40):
when ted Ammon was still in Manhattan. Soon suspicion fell
on anyone who knew the pass code to the home
security system. The home's high tech nine camera security system
had been turned off before the crime. When police arrived
on the scene, they found no evidence of a burglary
or break in, just a trail of blood leading up
the stairs to the bedroom, so whoever had killed ted
(06:02):
Ammon had known him. The only two people without alibis
were as soon to be ex wife Generosa, who stood
to gain a lot financially from his sudden death, and
thirty eight year old electrician Daniel Pelosi, who she had
hired to work for her at her town home in Manhattan,
will learn all about them and what the detectives discovered.
After a short break were back with murder homes with
(06:34):
six homes, five cars, and millions in assets. You'd think
Ted Ammon would be a happy man, but his wife,
Generosa was making him miserable. And yet in the early years,
Generosa and Ted's marriage was described as adyllic despite their
very different backgrounds. While Ted had modest beginnings, he grew
up in a stable home in New York, did well
(06:56):
in college, and then had a meteoric rise at Wall
Street running the successful firm KKR. He married, but then
divorced his wife after nine years after they were unable
to have children. Meanwhile, Generosa was raised by a single
mother who had died of brain cancer when she was ten.
Both she and her sister were sent to live in
(07:16):
abusive foster homes. A few years later, leafing through her
mother's old photos in an album, she came across a
snapshot of a blond Italian sailor on the back was
ridden Generosa. Putting two and two together, she realized she
was the love child of that sailor and that she'd
been named after him. The sole protector left in her
life was her sister, who was killed in a hidden
(07:37):
run accident when Generosa was seventeen. When Generosa met Ted
in nineteen eighty six, she had made her way to
New York and was working as an apartment real estate broker.
After Ted had blown off in appointment with her, she
called him to give him a piece of her mind,
and instead of being turned off by that flash of temper,
he was intrigued. Just a few short weeks afterwards, they
(07:59):
began dating. We spoke to Joe Farges, Generosa's riding teacher,
about those early years. Joe became good friends with Generosa
in the early nineties, and it was occasionally invited to
dine with them. So how did you meet her?
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Generosa came to ride at the farm. I was out
in Southampton in the eighties, and she had a horse,
and she knocked on the door and said could I
keep my horse with you? And sure that was my business. Anyway,
Generosa came out and ride for a sum.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Or two with us. Can you tell me a little
bit about your impressions of her.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
My impressions of her was she was a totally normal
human being. And then I'm quite aware that life exploded
on her after she left us. But she and her
husband had meet a dinner a lot, and it was
before she adopted some children, and after the children were adopted,
I would say she stopped riding. But I can't tell
you there's anything abnormal about anything normal lady coming out
(08:56):
to ride her horse.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Tell me a few things about just the dinner, anything
that stands out.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
I'm going to tell you. If anything abnormal happened to them,
it happened after I met her, when things went off
the rails. But I really can't. I can't help you
out here. She was quite quite nice. I never saw
her explode. I never saw anything happened crazy.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
What did you think of Ted Emmon?
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Businessman? Nice young fit and they seemed to get along
well at that time. Okay, hey, but we all had
dinner together. Was normal time.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
It wasn't one of those dinners you walk out of
and you think that something.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Was no, not at all, you think something was a ride,
not at all, not at all.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
But according to her staff, and friends. The marriage started
to collapse after they adopted their beloved children. In nineteen
ninety two, Generosa became convinced that Ted had a new girlfriend.
She had heard a baseless rumor that filled her with rage.
Ted's new love interest had had its child. Here's Michael again.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
There was some relationship with a woman who is correctly
described in the piece as being almost like an antithesis
to Generosa, a very well bred, proper businesswoman, quite a
successful and also close to people sort of around Ted.
I just remember from my reporting feeling pretty sure that
(10:20):
Ted had a relationship with this woman, but as I recall,
friends of the mystery woman strongly denied that there could
have been a child in the.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Picture, despite the rumor of the child having no merit.
With the idea of planted in her head, Generosi's paranoia
and erratic behavior only grew more intense.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
It's sort of hard to imagine this woman not being
a little crazy. Is a point at which she starts
telling her children that across the street on the roof
of the Metropolitan Museum is a whole sort of disc
broadcast set up to keep an eye on them, and
Ted had to literally take them across the street and
(11:02):
have a museum staffer take them upstairs to convince them
that they weren't being spied on by their mother. I
remember talking to the woman who had done the landscaping,
and she was just really shocked that she first explained
to Generosa that these tulips changed color shade over twenty
four hours or whatever it was. And nevertheless, Generosa chose
(11:27):
a particular shade and was shocked when it looked a
little different to her discerning eye late that day. And
then and she, you know, demanded they all get pulled
out because it wasn't the shade she wanted.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
And the pool bubbles blowing, Yes, the bubbles.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
I think she called someone at four in the morning
to say that she'd been looking out at the pool
and yes, the bubbles were going in the wrong direction. Well,
I think she was pretty paranoid. I think it was
inevitable that that would induce outbreaks of temper that were
really kind of shocking.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
And then there was the gaunt, good looking Pelosi who
Generosa was paying to oversee the one million dollar renovation
of the outrageously expensive town home that Ted had let
Generosa stay in during the divorce proceedings. Pelosi had a
checkered history. He had been pulled over a month before
the murders for drunken driving, but had quickly changed seats
with a friend, hoping not to be arrested. Generosa was
(12:23):
not only paying Pelosi handsomely, she had also become his lover,
and the two had become a fixture at the Stanhope
hotel's bar, where Generosa and Pelosi were staying, and a
fifteen hundred dollars per day's suite. Her two children, Alexa
and greg were staying in an adjoining room, all of
it paid for by Ted Ammon. As the divorce negotiations
(12:43):
and renovations wore on, Generosa's alimony demands were staggering to
fifty thousand dollars annually for a bodyguard, fifty thousand dollars
for a housekeeper, fifty thousand dollars for a chef, fifty
thousand dollars for a driver, thirty thousand dollars for a gardener,
one hundred thousand dollars for an assistant, and then there
were Pelosi's expenses. They'd wake up next to each other
(13:11):
in the king sized bed at the Stanhope and order
a five hundred dollar breakfast for them and the servants
then pay a dog walker fifty dollars to walk the
dog around the block so that they could linger over
the freshly squeezed orange juice an assortment of danishes. Pelosi
was getting used to the high living and Generosa's cash handouts.
He was leaving one hundred dollars tips at the Stanhope's bar.
(13:33):
He was not only enjoying the lifestyle, he now felt
he deserved it, and Ted Ammon grudgingly covered it all.
But finally, by the fall, Ted was feeling a little reprieve.
Generosa seemed to be taking her lawyer's advice to demand less.
They were close to a settlement, and very soon a
judge would decree exactly how much she would be getting,
(13:55):
and he'd finally be able to move on. The question
is was the reprieve real or was Generosa actually plotting
something else. We'll learn more after a short break. We're
(14:17):
back with Murder Holmes and the story of the murder
of Ted Ammon Generosa. Ammon could be personable and creative
and a loving mother to their two adopted children, but
she also had a hair trigger temper when she felt
that she was being crossed, she would protect the life
she had built from scratch at all costs. Could she
(14:38):
have been so angry at her husband near the end
of the divorce proceedings that she would mastermind his murder
or was it all Pelosi's idea. Michael got a look
at Daniel Pelosi up close when he was arigned in court.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
You know, I mean, the evidence is the evidence, and
Ted was budgeted to death, and Danny Pelosi was more
than the obvious suspect. He was really so clearly murderer,
you know, with a sort of swaggering, macho guy with
a tool kid on his waist. I saw him a
couple of times. He was in his own sort of
gaunt way, a kind of handsome fellow.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Where did you see him?
Speaker 2 (15:14):
I saw him in a courtroom, actually very soon after
the murderer, because he was hauled in just to a
local court for a drinking charge. And I sat about
three feet from him. Then tried to imagine how this
man could have killed somebody, And of course we didn't
know at that time that he very likely had, but
you know, it was kind of weird.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
He was right there, seem in the courtroom. Could you
picture did it seem like he was capable of that
kind of level of brutality.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
No, but anyone who saw that the body would certainly
know he was. I wanted to just go back to
something though, that is that if several years later, these
detectives who kept on the case got a couple local
young hoods to acknowledge something really extraordinary, which was that
on the night of Ted's murder, they were recruited by Danny,
(16:08):
their buddy, to go to the site and not necessary
to kill Ted Ammon, but to you know, sort of
terrorize him into giving Generosa a better deal with the divorce.
And according to this story, these guys, these two guys
sat in the car while well Danny alone went into
(16:29):
fifty nine Middle Lane, and not too long after Danny
emerged covered with blood and sat down in the in
the car and got blood over the other guys, and
they all kept the secret of what they'd seen and
experienced that night.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
That's incredible because I always picture him going in alone.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yeah, I mean he did go on alone, but at
the same time he had it was it was quite
quite a story that occurred.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Just like Generosa, Daniel Peloussi had two sides to him.
He could be disconcertingly violent or charming. At a work site,
an employee remembers the sadistic pleasure that Pelosi took and
using a stun gun on him as a prank. But
the two adopted children of Ted in Genero so remember
him as an affectionate father figure. It wasn't until he
was charged that they began to see things differently. How
(17:20):
could the fun loving father figure they loved be capable
of torturing and killing their father. A friend of Pelosi's name,
Chris Pirino, would ultimately confess to driving Pelosi to fifty
nine Middle Lane on the night of the murder. Pirino
watched him leave the car stun gun in hand, and
thought Pelosi was going to just rough up Ammen. Would
(17:42):
Perino have been involved at all if he had thought
Pelosi would murder ted Ammon, It seems unlikely. One scenario
is that Pelosi disables the security system as soon as
he enters the front door of fifty nine Middle Lane.
Ted Ammon is sleeping naked in bed and is awakened.
He stands, but it is confronted by Pelosi as he
enters the bedroom. Pelosi raises the stun gun and presses
(18:05):
it against Ted's back, where he delivers the first crackling shock.
Pelosi tells Ammon he's going to give Generosa whatever she wants,
and as Pelosi delivers another shock to the back of
Ted's neck, he agrees to everything. So why doesn't Pelosi
stop right there? Ted was not known to have a temper.
The last thing on earth he would do is take
(18:27):
a swing at someone. Most likely, he would have caved
into all of Pelosi's demands. So what is it about
Ted Ammon in this pathetic state of vulnerability that would
incite Pelosi to go further, to begin bludgeoning him again
and again as he begs for his life. A former
salmate of pelosi as would later say that Pelosi told
(18:48):
him he enjoyed beating Ted as he quote cried out
like a bitch. So was it about the money? Money
was already being divided? Was it jealousy Generosa was no
longer in love with Ted? Or was it simply violence?
And how rage always blows away the best laid plans.
Add to that the fact that Pelosi walked into that
home with a half baked plan. Anyway, Surely Generosa wouldn't
(19:12):
have been on board with her lover disabling the home
security system that only he and a handful of hired
help had access to, and then beating ted to death.
He might as well have bludgeoned ted Ammon to death
outside the Ralph Lorenz store on Main Street. In the end,
it seems like Daniel Pelosi couldn't help himself even in prison.
He's reported to have problems controlling his anger. He spent
(19:34):
a year in solitary for intimidating a witness. He always
goes too far. On the night of the murder, Chris
Pirino nervously waited for Pelosi in the car, listening to
the dogs barking inside. They could easily have intimidated ted
Amman simply by sitting in his driveway at night, but
instead of Pelosi exited the home hunched over, quickly climbing
(19:57):
into the driver's seat, his clothes spattered with ted blood.
He left a trail of it all the way down
the stairs. But despite the evidence, it took months for
investigators to charge him, and Generosa would refuse to testify
against him and later die of breast cancer in two
thousand and three. Here's Michael Schneer saying again.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
It's such a fascinating, almost biblical situation, right, She essentially
has her husband killed and then dies of cancer herself.
Of course, it's sort of hard to escape the words
in your head saying, well, she deserved it. I don't
think anybody deserves to die prematurely. You know, as we
said earlier, one can sympathize to some extent with her.
She did have a tough childhood, She did seem to
(20:41):
have real behavioral problems. So her fears, her paranoia that
she was being cheated by her husband. All the money
he'd made was being sickened off into his private accounts,
and she wasn't getting what she needed. And then she
had her lawyer tick off these many many expenses, and
she was doing it the sense of revenge for what
(21:02):
she felt was her poor treatment by the whole ted
Ammin circle of friends and professionals. I think she felt
in a way completely alone. It must have been haunting
for her to stay in that house for a while.
I mean, we know she stayed for a while, and
I think in the end she spent a lot of
time in England at that place in Surrey, but wherever
she was, she was pretty much alone except for the kids.
(21:24):
And ironically Danny Pelosi.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Right the famous photograph of them in London in the.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Car, Yes, that's right, that amazing photograph, and the reports
of how after Generosa died there was Danny staying at
the Stanhop hotel where the two of them had stayed
many many nights, and he would pull up this box
of ashes, which were Generosa's ashes, and put them on
the bar and go into a weepy stayed about how
(21:51):
terrible it was unfair that the Generosa had died.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
He was still leaving one hundred dollars tips, and Ted Ammon,
even from beyond his gray, was still picking up the tad.
A couple of years later, in March two thousand and four,
Pelosi would be arrested for the murder of Ted Ammon,
and after Pelosi's friend Christopher Perino admitted that he was
waiting in the car for Pelosi at Ammon's house when
(22:16):
he saw him covered with blood, Pelosi was convicted in
December two thousand and four. Pirino served four months in
jail for helping Pelosi cover up the crime. As for
the other men with them that Michael Schneerson alluded to.
It doesn't appear that the authorities followed up on it. Meanwhile,
to this day, Pelosi remains in prison and maintains his innocence.
(22:39):
I have this image of Ted Ammon, good looking, leaning
back in a chair at his office at KKR, when
a call is put through. It's Generosa, the real estate agent.
He blew off, and at first she's giving him a
piece of her mind. He smiles as he listens to her.
All he has to do is hang up and two
lives continue in different directions. But instead he asked her
(23:01):
on a date. I can imagine them sitting at a
swanky Upper east Side restaurant, just beginning to share a
few secrets, charming each other. Part of the charm is
her mystery, the way she glosses over certain details of
her past, but there are no red flags that make
him think twice. Besides, isn't the joy of falling in
love with the act of gradually getting to know someone?
Speaker 3 (23:24):
I'd have to say, I was shocked. I was shocked.
It wasn't the person I knew. All this intrigue in
boyfriends and murder, it wasn't the person I knew not
even slightly, not even close, And.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
What became of the Middle l Aine House, a place
where all this murder and anguish took place. In twenty seventeen,
the home was listed for twelve point seven million with
Town and Country real Estate. According to reports, Brown Harris
Stevens represented the buyer. After just a couple of months
on the market, the home went down to eleven point
seven million, and that was cut a few months later
(23:57):
to ten point nine million. The stigmatized home finally sold
for eight million, at a steep discount. The question is,
in today's hot real estate market would still hold true?
This is Murder Holmes. I'm at Marinovitch. Thanks for listening.
(24:32):
Murder Holmes is a production of iHeart Podcasts. For more
shows from iHeart Podcasts, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Murder Homes is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
It's a big house, fifty nine Middle Lane, part of
East Tampton. So you know, when you buy a house
like that, you're buying a staff of people to help
maintain it. And that's something that you notice in any
of these Hampton's houses, they really are like ships.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
That voice you just heard is Michael Schneerson, author Hampton's
Local and former Vanity Fair contributor, whose coverage of the
two thousand and eight murder at Middle Lane is how
I first came to learn about the story featured in
today's episode. As Michael says, fifty nine Middle Lane bisects
(00:41):
one of the wealthiest sections of East Tampton with huge homes.
You drive past an endless tall hedgerow and then suddenly
you catch sight of it, a six bedroom manor style home.
It's set deep on two point two exquisitely landscaped acres,
a half mile from the ultra exclusive met eat Stone
Club and a short drive to the ocean. The house
(01:04):
couldn't be more perfectly situated. In fact, just recently sold
for ten point two million dollars. Out Here among the
super wealthy, a homicide is almost unheard of. A typical
item in the local newspaper's police blodder might feature a
man who tucked a bottle of eighteen year old McCallen
under his sweatshirt at Amagansett Wine and Spirits. But on
(01:25):
October twentieth, two thousand and eight, a homicide is exactly
what took place. This is murder Holmes. I'm Matt Marinovich.
(01:57):
One of the myths of living out in the Hamptons
is that wealth buys acres and acres of replenishing silence,
But keeping a multimillion dollar home looking good sounds more
like this. On a beautiful summer day, the wealthiest enclaves
(02:19):
are noisier than Runway thirteen al at JFK workers hop
out of landscaping trucks like well oiled swat teams. But
by early fall things always start to quiet down, and
locals know it's the best time of year to be
in the Hamptons. It was during the off season when
Ted Ammon, a fifty two year old investment banker, was
(02:40):
speeding down Montauk Highway in his silver porch. He had
his two Golden Retrievers in the backseat. He was headed
to his house on Middle Lane, finally looking forward to
some peace. Ted had spent the last year of his
life on the verge of resolving a very contentious, expensive
divorce from his wife, Generosa, finally closed to his settlement,
(03:02):
but just two days later, on October twenty second, two
thousand and one, Ted Ammon's silver porch was found in
the driveway and his body was found naked in the
master bedroom, bludgeoned to death. Yellow police tape stretched around
the mansion. Barricades were placed at the entrance of the
long driveway to fend off camera crews. Suffolk County detectives
(03:23):
fanned out and interviewed neighbors, but nobody had seen anything
out of the ordinary, except for a house guest who
was staying at a neighbor's home next door to Ammon
on the night of October twentieth. The house guest said
he was putting the finishing touches on a water color
he was painting of the pond behind Ammon's home when
he heard two cars crunching down the long gravel driveway
(03:44):
of fifty nine Middle Lane. He didn't think much of it.
At night, the lights in Ammon's bedroom remained on, but
the neighbor wasn't alarmed by that either. Whose rock the
Hampton's In a town where trimmed hedgerows offered the only protection,
(04:05):
especially when home security systems could be so easily disabled,
every millionaire on Middle Lane began to wonder if their
home was next here's Michael Schneerson. Again.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
There had not been a murder, I think in three
hundred and fifty years something crazy like that, and that
was maybe the only one. You know, It's a very peaceful,
idyllic neighborhood of grand homes where everybody feels very safe.
So it was really a shock, especially considering the brutality
of the circumstances.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Ted's business partner had found him. He had grown concerned
when Ted missed his morning meeting in Manhattan, and he
flew out to East Tampton by helicopter. When he entered
the home, he was immediately greeted by Ammon's agitated dogs.
He made his way from room to room, calling Ted's
name as he climbed up to the second floor. It
was there he discovered Ammon's naked body in the master bedroom.
(04:58):
Police arrived minutes later. In the home was sealed off.
The medical examiner would later determine that he had been
sadistically tortured with a stun gun before he suffered thirty
blows to his head with a blunt object. As news spread,
rumors started to swirl a naked man had been seen
running down Middle Lane. Gossip centered on a gay cruising
(05:19):
area at two mile Hollow Beach just a short drive away.
There were whispers about ted Emmon being a closet homosexual.
Maybe he'd engage in some rough sex with a stranger
and things a gun out of hand, but this rumor
was quickly dispelled when police confirmed that the naked man
had been seen around eleven am on Friday, October eighteenth,
(05:40):
when ted Ammon was still in Manhattan. Soon suspicion fell
on anyone who knew the pass code to the home
security system. The home's high tech nine camera security system
had been turned off before the crime. When police arrived
on the scene, they found no evidence of a burglary
or break in, just a trail of blood leading up
the stairs to the bedroom, so whoever had killed ted
(06:02):
Ammon had known him. The only two people without alibis
were as soon to be ex wife Generosa, who stood
to gain a lot financially from his sudden death, and
thirty eight year old electrician Daniel Pelosi, who she had
hired to work for her at her town home in Manhattan,
will learn all about them and what the detectives discovered.
After a short break were back with murder homes with
(06:34):
six homes, five cars, and millions in assets. You'd think
Ted Ammon would be a happy man, but his wife,
Generosa was making him miserable. And yet in the early years,
Generosa and Ted's marriage was described as adyllic despite their
very different backgrounds. While Ted had modest beginnings, he grew
up in a stable home in New York, did well
(06:56):
in college, and then had a meteoric rise at Wall
Street running the successful firm KKR. He married, but then
divorced his wife after nine years after they were unable
to have children. Meanwhile, Generosa was raised by a single
mother who had died of brain cancer when she was ten.
Both she and her sister were sent to live in
(07:16):
abusive foster homes. A few years later, leafing through her
mother's old photos in an album, she came across a
snapshot of a blond Italian sailor on the back was
ridden Generosa. Putting two and two together, she realized she
was the love child of that sailor and that she'd
been named after him. The sole protector left in her
life was her sister, who was killed in a hidden
(07:37):
run accident when Generosa was seventeen. When Generosa met Ted
in nineteen eighty six, she had made her way to
New York and was working as an apartment real estate broker.
After Ted had blown off in appointment with her, she
called him to give him a piece of her mind,
and instead of being turned off by that flash of temper,
he was intrigued. Just a few short weeks afterwards, they
(07:59):
began dating. We spoke to Joe Farges, Generosa's riding teacher,
about those early years. Joe became good friends with Generosa
in the early nineties, and it was occasionally invited to
dine with them. So how did you meet her?
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Generosa came to ride at the farm. I was out
in Southampton in the eighties, and she had a horse,
and she knocked on the door and said could I
keep my horse with you? And sure that was my business. Anyway,
Generosa came out and ride for a sum.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Or two with us. Can you tell me a little
bit about your impressions of her.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
My impressions of her was she was a totally normal
human being. And then I'm quite aware that life exploded
on her after she left us. But she and her
husband had meet a dinner a lot, and it was
before she adopted some children, and after the children were adopted,
I would say she stopped riding. But I can't tell
you there's anything abnormal about anything normal lady coming out
(08:56):
to ride her horse.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Tell me a few things about just the dinner, anything
that stands out.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
I'm going to tell you. If anything abnormal happened to them,
it happened after I met her, when things went off
the rails. But I really can't. I can't help you
out here. She was quite quite nice. I never saw
her explode. I never saw anything happened crazy.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
What did you think of Ted Emmon?
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Businessman? Nice young fit and they seemed to get along
well at that time. Okay, hey, but we all had
dinner together. Was normal time.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
It wasn't one of those dinners you walk out of
and you think that something.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Was no, not at all, you think something was a ride,
not at all, not at all.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
But according to her staff, and friends. The marriage started
to collapse after they adopted their beloved children. In nineteen
ninety two, Generosa became convinced that Ted had a new girlfriend.
She had heard a baseless rumor that filled her with rage.
Ted's new love interest had had its child. Here's Michael again.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
There was some relationship with a woman who is correctly
described in the piece as being almost like an antithesis
to Generosa, a very well bred, proper businesswoman, quite a
successful and also close to people sort of around Ted.
I just remember from my reporting feeling pretty sure that
(10:20):
Ted had a relationship with this woman, but as I recall,
friends of the mystery woman strongly denied that there could
have been a child in the.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Picture, despite the rumor of the child having no merit.
With the idea of planted in her head, Generosi's paranoia
and erratic behavior only grew more intense.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
It's sort of hard to imagine this woman not being
a little crazy. Is a point at which she starts
telling her children that across the street on the roof
of the Metropolitan Museum is a whole sort of disc
broadcast set up to keep an eye on them, and
Ted had to literally take them across the street and
(11:02):
have a museum staffer take them upstairs to convince them
that they weren't being spied on by their mother. I
remember talking to the woman who had done the landscaping,
and she was just really shocked that she first explained
to Generosa that these tulips changed color shade over twenty
four hours or whatever it was. And nevertheless, Generosa chose
(11:27):
a particular shade and was shocked when it looked a
little different to her discerning eye late that day. And
then and she, you know, demanded they all get pulled
out because it wasn't the shade she wanted.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
And the pool bubbles blowing, Yes, the bubbles.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
I think she called someone at four in the morning
to say that she'd been looking out at the pool
and yes, the bubbles were going in the wrong direction. Well,
I think she was pretty paranoid. I think it was
inevitable that that would induce outbreaks of temper that were
really kind of shocking.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
And then there was the gaunt, good looking Pelosi who
Generosa was paying to oversee the one million dollar renovation
of the outrageously expensive town home that Ted had let
Generosa stay in during the divorce proceedings. Pelosi had a
checkered history. He had been pulled over a month before
the murders for drunken driving, but had quickly changed seats
with a friend, hoping not to be arrested. Generosa was
(12:23):
not only paying Pelosi handsomely, she had also become his lover,
and the two had become a fixture at the Stanhope
hotel's bar, where Generosa and Pelosi were staying, and a
fifteen hundred dollars per day's suite. Her two children, Alexa
and greg were staying in an adjoining room, all of
it paid for by Ted Ammon. As the divorce negotiations
(12:43):
and renovations wore on, Generosa's alimony demands were staggering to
fifty thousand dollars annually for a bodyguard, fifty thousand dollars
for a housekeeper, fifty thousand dollars for a chef, fifty
thousand dollars for a driver, thirty thousand dollars for a gardener,
one hundred thousand dollars for an assistant, and then there
were Pelosi's expenses. They'd wake up next to each other
(13:11):
in the king sized bed at the Stanhope and order
a five hundred dollar breakfast for them and the servants
then pay a dog walker fifty dollars to walk the
dog around the block so that they could linger over
the freshly squeezed orange juice an assortment of danishes. Pelosi
was getting used to the high living and Generosa's cash handouts.
He was leaving one hundred dollars tips at the Stanhope's bar.
(13:33):
He was not only enjoying the lifestyle, he now felt
he deserved it, and Ted Ammon grudgingly covered it all.
But finally, by the fall, Ted was feeling a little reprieve.
Generosa seemed to be taking her lawyer's advice to demand less.
They were close to a settlement, and very soon a
judge would decree exactly how much she would be getting,
(13:55):
and he'd finally be able to move on. The question
is was the reprieve real or was Generosa actually plotting
something else. We'll learn more after a short break. We're
(14:17):
back with Murder Holmes and the story of the murder
of Ted Ammon Generosa. Ammon could be personable and creative
and a loving mother to their two adopted children, but
she also had a hair trigger temper when she felt
that she was being crossed, she would protect the life
she had built from scratch at all costs. Could she
(14:38):
have been so angry at her husband near the end
of the divorce proceedings that she would mastermind his murder
or was it all Pelosi's idea. Michael got a look
at Daniel Pelosi up close when he was arigned in court.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
You know, I mean, the evidence is the evidence, and
Ted was budgeted to death, and Danny Pelosi was more
than the obvious suspect. He was really so clearly murderer,
you know, with a sort of swaggering, macho guy with
a tool kid on his waist. I saw him a
couple of times. He was in his own sort of
gaunt way, a kind of handsome fellow.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Where did you see him?
Speaker 2 (15:14):
I saw him in a courtroom, actually very soon after
the murderer, because he was hauled in just to a
local court for a drinking charge. And I sat about
three feet from him. Then tried to imagine how this
man could have killed somebody, And of course we didn't
know at that time that he very likely had, but
you know, it was kind of weird.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
He was right there, seem in the courtroom. Could you
picture did it seem like he was capable of that
kind of level of brutality.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
No, but anyone who saw that the body would certainly
know he was. I wanted to just go back to
something though, that is that if several years later, these
detectives who kept on the case got a couple local
young hoods to acknowledge something really extraordinary, which was that
on the night of Ted's murder, they were recruited by Danny,
(16:08):
their buddy, to go to the site and not necessary
to kill Ted Ammon, but to you know, sort of
terrorize him into giving Generosa a better deal with the divorce.
And according to this story, these guys, these two guys
sat in the car while well Danny alone went into
(16:29):
fifty nine Middle Lane, and not too long after Danny
emerged covered with blood and sat down in the in
the car and got blood over the other guys, and
they all kept the secret of what they'd seen and
experienced that night.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
That's incredible because I always picture him going in alone.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yeah, I mean he did go on alone, but at
the same time he had it was it was quite
quite a story that occurred.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Just like Generosa, Daniel Peloussi had two sides to him.
He could be disconcertingly violent or charming. At a work site,
an employee remembers the sadistic pleasure that Pelosi took and
using a stun gun on him as a prank. But
the two adopted children of Ted in Genero so remember
him as an affectionate father figure. It wasn't until he
was charged that they began to see things differently. How
(17:20):
could the fun loving father figure they loved be capable
of torturing and killing their father. A friend of Pelosi's name,
Chris Pirino, would ultimately confess to driving Pelosi to fifty
nine Middle Lane on the night of the murder. Pirino
watched him leave the car stun gun in hand, and
thought Pelosi was going to just rough up Ammen. Would
(17:42):
Perino have been involved at all if he had thought
Pelosi would murder ted Ammon, It seems unlikely. One scenario
is that Pelosi disables the security system as soon as
he enters the front door of fifty nine Middle Lane.
Ted Ammon is sleeping naked in bed and is awakened.
He stands, but it is confronted by Pelosi as he
enters the bedroom. Pelosi raises the stun gun and presses
(18:05):
it against Ted's back, where he delivers the first crackling shock.
Pelosi tells Ammon he's going to give Generosa whatever she wants,
and as Pelosi delivers another shock to the back of
Ted's neck, he agrees to everything. So why doesn't Pelosi
stop right there? Ted was not known to have a temper.
The last thing on earth he would do is take
(18:27):
a swing at someone. Most likely, he would have caved
into all of Pelosi's demands. So what is it about
Ted Ammon in this pathetic state of vulnerability that would
incite Pelosi to go further, to begin bludgeoning him again
and again as he begs for his life. A former
salmate of pelosi as would later say that Pelosi told
(18:48):
him he enjoyed beating Ted as he quote cried out
like a bitch. So was it about the money? Money
was already being divided? Was it jealousy Generosa was no
longer in love with Ted? Or was it simply violence?
And how rage always blows away the best laid plans.
Add to that the fact that Pelosi walked into that
home with a half baked plan. Anyway, Surely Generosa wouldn't
(19:12):
have been on board with her lover disabling the home
security system that only he and a handful of hired
help had access to, and then beating ted to death.
He might as well have bludgeoned ted Ammon to death
outside the Ralph Lorenz store on Main Street. In the end,
it seems like Daniel Pelosi couldn't help himself even in prison.
He's reported to have problems controlling his anger. He spent
(19:34):
a year in solitary for intimidating a witness. He always
goes too far. On the night of the murder, Chris
Pirino nervously waited for Pelosi in the car, listening to
the dogs barking inside. They could easily have intimidated ted
Amman simply by sitting in his driveway at night, but
instead of Pelosi exited the home hunched over, quickly climbing
(19:57):
into the driver's seat, his clothes spattered with ted blood.
He left a trail of it all the way down
the stairs. But despite the evidence, it took months for
investigators to charge him, and Generosa would refuse to testify
against him and later die of breast cancer in two
thousand and three. Here's Michael Schneer saying again.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
It's such a fascinating, almost biblical situation, right, She essentially
has her husband killed and then dies of cancer herself.
Of course, it's sort of hard to escape the words
in your head saying, well, she deserved it. I don't
think anybody deserves to die prematurely. You know, as we
said earlier, one can sympathize to some extent with her.
She did have a tough childhood, She did seem to
(20:41):
have real behavioral problems. So her fears, her paranoia that
she was being cheated by her husband. All the money
he'd made was being sickened off into his private accounts,
and she wasn't getting what she needed. And then she
had her lawyer tick off these many many expenses, and
she was doing it the sense of revenge for what
(21:02):
she felt was her poor treatment by the whole ted
Ammin circle of friends and professionals. I think she felt
in a way completely alone. It must have been haunting
for her to stay in that house for a while.
I mean, we know she stayed for a while, and
I think in the end she spent a lot of
time in England at that place in Surrey, but wherever
she was, she was pretty much alone except for the kids.
(21:24):
And ironically Danny Pelosi.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Right the famous photograph of them in London in the.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Car, Yes, that's right, that amazing photograph, and the reports
of how after Generosa died there was Danny staying at
the Stanhop hotel where the two of them had stayed
many many nights, and he would pull up this box
of ashes, which were Generosa's ashes, and put them on
the bar and go into a weepy stayed about how
(21:51):
terrible it was unfair that the Generosa had died.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
He was still leaving one hundred dollars tips, and Ted Ammon,
even from beyond his gray, was still picking up the tad.
A couple of years later, in March two thousand and four,
Pelosi would be arrested for the murder of Ted Ammon,
and after Pelosi's friend Christopher Perino admitted that he was
waiting in the car for Pelosi at Ammon's house when
(22:16):
he saw him covered with blood, Pelosi was convicted in
December two thousand and four. Pirino served four months in
jail for helping Pelosi cover up the crime. As for
the other men with them that Michael Schneerson alluded to.
It doesn't appear that the authorities followed up on it. Meanwhile,
to this day, Pelosi remains in prison and maintains his innocence.
(22:39):
I have this image of Ted Ammon, good looking, leaning
back in a chair at his office at KKR, when
a call is put through. It's Generosa, the real estate agent.
He blew off, and at first she's giving him a
piece of her mind. He smiles as he listens to her.
All he has to do is hang up and two
lives continue in different directions. But instead he asked her
(23:01):
on a date. I can imagine them sitting at a
swanky Upper east Side restaurant, just beginning to share a
few secrets, charming each other. Part of the charm is
her mystery, the way she glosses over certain details of
her past, but there are no red flags that make
him think twice. Besides, isn't the joy of falling in
love with the act of gradually getting to know someone?
Speaker 3 (23:24):
I'd have to say, I was shocked. I was shocked.
It wasn't the person I knew. All this intrigue in
boyfriends and murder, it wasn't the person I knew not
even slightly, not even close, And.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
What became of the Middle l Aine House, a place
where all this murder and anguish took place. In twenty seventeen,
the home was listed for twelve point seven million with
Town and Country real Estate. According to reports, Brown Harris
Stevens represented the buyer. After just a couple of months
on the market, the home went down to eleven point
seven million, and that was cut a few months later
(23:57):
to ten point nine million. The stigmatized home finally sold
for eight million, at a steep discount. The question is,
in today's hot real estate market would still hold true?
This is Murder Holmes. I'm at Marinovitch. Thanks for listening.
(24:32):
Murder Holmes is a production of iHeart Podcasts. For more
shows from iHeart Podcasts, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Matt Marinovich
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