How (Not) to Get Rid of a Body (2024) s01e03 Episode Script

[heavy stone scraping]
This case is "Dracula" meets
the "Sons of Anarchy."
I've never seen anybody go to
this length to dispose of
and conceal the body.
They told us that there was
no body to look for.
The most offensive thing I can
think of to do that to another
human being, alive or dead.
It was a genius plan
that they concocted.
They thought they were smart.
They were
completely outmatched.
[heavy stone scraping]
[Christopher]
In early February 2020,
a person by the name of
Dottie Palumbo came into the
Upper Darby Police Department to
report her son, Keith
Palumbo, missing.
I went up the steps,
and the man said,
"Can I help you?"
And I said, "Yes, I want to
report my son missing."
And the first thing
he asked me was,
"How old is your son?"
And I said, "He's 36."
Muah.
Love you.
And I said,
"Something's wrong,
it's not like him to not
call me."
[Matthew]
Keith and I became
best friends in nursery school.
When I first found out
he disappeared, yeah, I was
like instantly sick to
my stomach.
Because I knew deep down,
like, that's not Keith.
He would never let his mother
worry like that.
We learned that Keith was
a very beloved person
within the community.
Keith was a lifelong
resident of
Delaware County, Pennsylvania.
He was an accomplished
musician.
[Dottie] He had a toy guitar
when he was maybe like four,
and keyboard, little keyboard,
any kind of instrument, really.
He just loved music.
He started two different bands
with two different groups
of friends.
Thank you everyone for
coming out!
We are The Return!
[punk music commences]
[Matthew]
Keith was a prodigy.
It was unbelievable how fast
he could move his fingers.
I mean, he was gifted.
[electric guitar wailing]
[Joseph]
His mother, Dottie, told me
that one of the pieces of
jewelry that Keith wore
all the time was
a gold-plated guitar pick.
It says, "Keith, never let
the music stop.
Love, Mom."
And he always wore it.
He always had it on.
[Matthew]
He was just cool, man.
Without even trying,
he was just cool.
Keith was fearless.
Keith, he was tough.
He was a badass.
You know, he's not one
to tuck tail and run away.
[dark, brooding tones]
[Dottie] It was the night
Keith went missing.
[wood creaking]
Keith came in.
He went upstairs
and got changed.
[creaking footsteps]
And when he came down,
he grabbed a couple
pieces of pizza,
and he said,
"I'll see you later."
[Christopher] Dottie stated that
he left in her silver vehicle.
From that night, he was never
seen or heard from again.
This case is at
the forefront of our minds.
So Keith was entered into
the national database as
a missing person.
And then from there,
we have a checklist
that we follow.
We'd call all
the local hospitals,
the morgues,
the prisons, homeless shelters,
um, any other places that
we believe that we would be
able to find Keith.
But without any success.
We also put in a request to
the cell phone provider to
obtain his cellular
phone records.
And we did prepare an alert for
Keith as well as
Dottie's silver vehicle.
As part of my research into
Keith, I located a report from
January 28, 2020,
in which he was
a gunshot victim.
That is approximately two weeks
to his reported going missing.
Police officers went to
the hospital, and attempted to
interview him.
[distant machine beeping]
He would not identify
the person who shot him.
I reasonably believe that
Keith was in fear for
his life at that time.
We were all thinking, did this
have something to do
with his disappearance?
I believe that Keith was, uh --
had some skeletons
in his closet.
He had some secrets.
It is my job to sort through
all the information that we're
getting and kind of do
a deep dive into his life.
[ambling pensive music playing]
[Joseph]
In interviewing Keith's family,
they indicated to us that Keith
and someone by the name of
Michael DeLuca had been
lifelong friends
since childhood.
Michael and Keith,
they were very good friends.
I mean, they were always
over my house.
They were at my house for
birthday parties.
[Matthew]
He looked out for me
and Keith and all.
And we never had anything to
worry about or fear, like when
we were with Mike.
Mike DeLuca was one of
our core best friends,
like, he was our brother.
[Christopher]
I began looking into
Michael DeLuca.
He has a very distinctive
appearance to him.
Shaved head, tattoos all over
his head and neck.
You can't miss him from
a mile away.
Michael DeLuca also had
a lengthy criminal history,
a violent criminal history.
He had only recently
gotten out of jail for
shooting his girlfriend.
[Joseph] We learned that when
he came home from prison,
he thought he was going to step
into the role as the leader of
the local chapter of
the Warlocks Motorcycle Club.
[engine revving]
[Christopher]
The Warlocks organization,
specifically the Harpy Warlocks,
are a 1% organization within
Philadelphia
and the surrounding counties.
For most of these biker groups,
violence is a calling card.
A lot of guys in these biker
groups are hardened criminals.
[engines revving]
[suspenseful music playing]
[Christopher]
Keith was not a member of
the club, but he was absolutely
surrounding himself with some
pretty dangerous people that
could turn on him in
the blink of an eye.
Anybody could have been
responsible for
Keith's disappearance.
But one of the interesting
things that we found was that
Michael DeLuca was
also missing.
He was nowhere to be found.
We thought that perhaps this
could possibly be connected to
Keith's disappearance.
We were frustrated because
we are getting numerous pieces
of, or tidbits of, information
from various sources.
Whoever is responsible for
Keith's disappearance made
our investigation difficult.
But we got a break in the case
when a patrolman found
Dottie's car in Kensington.
[Dave]
So this is a missing
persons investigation.
Now you have a car turn up
in Kensington,
a feared neighborhood
in Philadelphia.
I think that was the real
surprise for investigators.
But they had never covered
a case like this,
and they're dealing with
an outlaw motorcycle gang,
this has the potential now to
really open a can of worms.
Keith Palumbo was last seen on
February 6, 2020, in
Upper Darby Township.
He was in his mother's vehicle,
which was a silver vehicle.
Investigators put out an alert
looking for this car.
Days later, they found it
in Kensington.
Normally, when we find people
or vehicles in the Kensington
section of Philadelphia,
my initial thought is
they're involved in
the drug trade.
It is a supermarket for
heroin and drugs.
People come from all over
the country to go to Kensington
to use heroin.
It is not unusual to see dozens
of people bent over at
the waist, staring
at the ground.
It's a cesspool up there.
[Bob]
The detectives were left
wondering why was
Mrs. Palumbo's car in
Kensington, and where was
Keith Palumbo?
[Dottie]
Keith, number one, would
never leave my car anywhere.
And number two,
he wouldn't be in Kensington.
Keith had a problem with drugs
when he was younger, but he had
been sober for over 10 years.
[Joseph]
We thought maybe someone left
the car up in Kensington to
make it seem like
Keith may have relapsed.
They thought they had
the perfect plan to
get rid of Keith.
So the car was processed for
any latent prints or any
physical evidence.
But it was wiped clean.
We believe that there was
an effort to try to stay ahead
of the police.
[Christopher]
It was very difficult.
Whoever did this obviously went
to extreme lengths to
conceal their crimes.
It's very evil
and very calculating.
I was thinking, what could have
happened Keith, is this
a potential homicide case?
Where is this body?
When I found out the car was
found in Kensington,
I'm talking to Dottie,
Keith's mom, and we're trying
to work this out.
We're trying to figure
this out.
I was every night wondering,
where is Keith?
Where's my best friend?
Like, is he alive?
Is he dead?
[Dottie]
We posted on Facebook.
I mean, we were almost 24 hours
a day trying to get leads from
people that might
know something.
[Joseph]
At the same time, Keith's best
friend and member of
the Warlocks, Michael DeLuca,
was still missing, which was
out of the ordinary.
We were trying to put all
the pieces of
the puzzle together.
And we needed to delve into
how Michael DeLuca fit
into the investigation.
But while we were investigating
Keith's disappearance,
rumors were flying that Keith
could would be an informant
for the police.
A lot of the Warlocks club
members thought
he was a snitch.
We learned that there was
an incident between Keith
and a patched-in member of
the Warlocks motorcycle group
by the name of Buck Evans.
Keith was in a house that
belonged to Buck Evans' son.
Buck Evans' son was allegedly
dealing drugs
out of that house.
Shortly after Keith left that
house, the police raided that
house and arrested
Buck Evans' son.
So Buck thought Keith had
snitched on his son.
We've dealt with Buck Evans
before in different capacities
as the Upper Darby
Police Department.
He was in and out of prison for
an array of crimes,
but I've talked to
the jurisdictions involved
and the police departments
and the detectives involved.
100% Keith was not a police
informant or a snitch.
That's pretty much the worst
thing you could do from where,
you know, where we come from is
to rat on someone,
be a, you know, a snitch.
Keith lived by a code,
he was loyal, but he was riding
with some pretty
dangerous guys.
[Dave]
These guys, they can turn
on anybody.
Everything is on the table.
And now you really have to
wonder what happened.
We're all, like, trying to stay
hopeful and positive.
But it's harder and harder to
remain positive
and optimistic as
the weeks went by.
[Dottie]
As time went on, I knew that
he was already gone
because it was too long of
a time for him to
stay away from us.
[Joseph]
We thought that perhaps Keith
was probably the victim
of homicide.
But at this point, he's still
listed as a missing person.
So, without Keith's body,
without locating him,
there's really nothing unless
someone could lead us to Keith.
And that stymied us
a little bit.
There were a lot of scenarios.
Keith disappears,
they don't know where he is.
DeLuca disappears,
they don't know where he is.
They're close friends.
Coincidence that they're both
disappearing at the same time?
We knew that Warlocks member,
Buck Evans, has
a dislike for Keith.
We learned that he has
a warrant out for
a parole violation.
We went after Buck Evans,
uh, specifically to see if
we can get him to talk about
what happened.
[Dave]
The come-to-Jesus moment is
when they bring Buck Evans in,
and now the investigation
really heats up.
Heading into the interview with
Warlocks member, Buck Evans,
we know that we had to play
our cards right.
[Joseph]
We knew that Buck Evans did not
like Keith Palumbo.
We brought him to Philadelphia
Police Headquarters.
[Christopher]
All of a sudden, Buck Evans
admits that he was the one
who had shot Keith previously
on January 28th.
[Joseph]
If Buck was admitting that
he shot Keith prior to
his disappearance because
he believed that Keith had
snitched on his own son,
it certainly raises
the question of, could he have
shot and killed Keith Palumbo?
Buck Evans was low-hanging
fruit and was our only lead,
so we decided to continue with
the information that
he was providing us.
It's then Buck Evans told us
that before Keith went missing,
something went down between
Keith and Michael DeLuca in
the Warlocks' clubhouse in
Southwest Philly.
It was tough for me to wrap
my mind around what
possibly occurred between Mike
DeLuca and Keith Palumbo,
because for the simple fact
that they were childhood
friends, Keith trusted Mike.
Is it possible that Michael
murdered his best friend?
The information that was
provided by Buck Evans needed
to be verified.
I obtained a search warrant for
the Warlock clubhouse.
So it's a two-story building.
The clubhouse was on
the first floor.
The table in the kitchen was
engraved with "Warlocks"
on both sides of it.
There was signage for the club,
motorcycle parts, things that
would go hand in hand with it
being the clubhouse of
a motorcycle group.
We were looking for physical
evidence of a crime.
All of the carpeting
was removed.
We took carpet fibers,
and the walls were all painted
black, which was weird.
But as you just looked harder
and closer through
the black paint,
you could see
the blood spatter.
I've been doing this
a long time.
It's very difficult to clean up
a bloody crime scene.
Finally, after some deviations
with people trying to throw us
off, we have key pieces of
evidence that
something happened there.
[Joseph]
If Keith was killed
at the clubhouse,
the people who were involved
think they're smarter than
the police, because we didn't
know where Keith was
and we didn't have his body.
Shortly after we searched
the clubhouse, we had left
a police officer on
the property because we were
still processing it.
And a woman by the name of
Donna Morelli,
who was allegedly the leader of
the Warlocks, came around
and indicated that she was
the owner of the property
and wanted to know what
was going on.
We learned Donna Morelli was
married to the leader of
the Warlocks, but that person
died, and Donna Morelli more
or less inherited the club.
We were wondering,
could Michael DeLuca have shot
Keith inside that property?
So I asked her where
DeLuca was staying.
Donna told us he was living in
the clubhouse, but she had not
seen him for several days
and may be somewhere on
the West Coast.
So she was giving information,
bits and pieces, to make it seem
like she was being cooperative,
when in reality,
I think she felt that
we would never locate him,
if he was on the run
from the police.
[dark, brooding music playing]
[Christopher]
Right around this time,
Keith's cell phone records
came back.
We discovered that before
Keith went missing,
this cell phone was last
pinging in the area of
Mount Moriah Cemetery,
the largest cemetery in
Pennsylvania, over 200 acres.
[Dave]
Mount Moriah Cemetery is huge.
It's probably three or four
city blocks, long,
deep, and wide.
And it's got folks in there
from before the Civil War.
It's got Medal of Honor winners
in there,
dignitaries, celebrities.
Now investigators have to
wonder, could Keith Palumbo
also be in the cemetery?
And then we learn that Donna
Morelli's residence backs up
to the cemetery.
It was also brought to
our attention that she is
a board member for the Friends
of Mount Moriah Cemetery.
So it wasn't lost on us
the fact that Donna had access
to the entire cemetery,
and we were wondering if
Donna could be involved.
Hiding a body in
a cemetery is ingenious.
And when you see
the number of headstones,
crypts, and mausoleums in
there, probably like finding
a needle in a haystack.
[Joseph]
The task before us was to find
a body in a cemetery.
What better way to hide a body
than in a cemetery that's
supposed to have bodies in it?
It was April 3rd of 2020.
We went looking for evidence of
Keith, and I saw how large
the cemetery was.
It just appeared to me to be
a daunting task.
We probably had
20 to 25 people out there
walking around the cemetery,
looking for any signs of things
that could have been moved
or were recently disturbed
or maybe a freshly dug grave.
When I was walking around,
I was overwhelmed.
I didn't think that
we would find Keith.
So we were walking around for
a very long time.
[Joseph]
And then one of the police
officers who was with us
happened to notice that there
was a very large capstone that
looked like it was a little bit
off center, and that there were
what we thought were fresh
scratch marks.
So that further
aroused our suspicions.
There's cracks in it that just
shouldn't be there.
And people started saying,
"What do you think of that?"
[Joseph]
According to the monument,
the last time that anyone had
been buried there was in
the year of 1810.
This was obviously something
that needed to be explored.
So we come equipped for
this specific task.
We brought our endoscopy
camera, and we attach
a flashlight to it, and we put
it into one of the cracks.
We were all surprised of what
was down there.
We were thinking,
is it possible?
Is Keith down there?
We needed to figure out what's
inside the actual crypt.
We did not have the capability
of moving the stone.
It weighed well in excess of
2,000 pounds.
So we enlisted
the help of
the Philadelphia
Fire Department.
[phone ringing]
Rescue One came,
and they pulled that
cover off slowly.
[heavy stone scraping]
I remember me and Detective
Bamberski just looking at
each other and like,
I can't believe it.
I just can't believe it.
[Christopher]
I was shocked that once
we pulled that cover back,
that it was that
big underneath.
It was just a massive structure
underneath that you would never
be able to fathom just standing
there looking at it from
ground level,
this massive underground crypt.
[Joseph]
It looked like something
out of a movie.
It was approximately 20 feet
down to the bottom
of the crypt.
This is "Dracula" meets
"Sons of Anarchy."
[John] At that point, we got
a ladder, and I went down.
I had never dealt with anything
like this in my career.
It was a brick structure
that formed a dome.
And there were a number of
coffins down in
the bottom of it.
Then one of the investigators,
upon closer look,
realized there wasn't one,
but there were two
fresh bodies.
The one was not identifiable.
[Joseph]
It was in a very advanced state
of decomposition with
a rope wrapped around the neck.
We thought this was the victim
of a violent death.
[Christopher]
And then we looked at the other
body, which we could identify
as Keith.
He was still somewhat
recognizable by
his facial features.
And he was still wearing
the guitar pick that his mother
had given him around his neck.
We could see that Keith had
been shot in the head
two times.
There was a blue tarp.
There was all the carpeting.
All the carpet padding, looked
like it had been removed from
the Warlocks clubhouse,
was also thrown down in
the bottom of the crypt.
We thought there was absolutely
more than one person involved.
And they were trying to get
away with murder.
But we did not know who killed
Keith Palumbo or what happened
to Michael DeLuca.
This is probably one of
the more ingenious ways
I've seen of getting rid of
a body.
[Christopher]
When we found Keith, I got
a feeling of relief that
we could finally give
Dottie the closure that
she desperately needed.
[Dottie]
It was eight weeks we were
looking for him.
Two detectives came
to the door.
I wasn't expecting good news,
and I said, "What happened?"
He said, "He was shot."
As a mom, if you lose a child,
you're never gonna get over it.
[Matthew]
My best friend, my lifelong
best friend, my best man in
my wedding
[rough exhale]
It's like he's gone.
You know, like
he's not coming back.
It just broke my heart.
It was like the worst
possible outcome was
Keith was gone.
[Joseph]
After we found the two bodies
in the cemetery,
we were curious as to whether
or not members of the Warlocks
were using the cemetery as
a dumping ground.
We knew Donna Morelli is
the supposed leader
of the Warlocks.
So we then got a search warrant
for her house.
We found a lot of handguns,
and then a lot of rifles.
We also confiscated Donna
Morelli's red pickup truck.
And in the back bed, I found
four brown carpet fibers that
had matched the carpet fibers
from the crypt,
and the Warlock clubhouse.
The whole case is adding up.
It's all coming in together.
When we found Keith's body,
we knew that it was a murder.
We knew that Keith had been
killed in the clubhouse,
but we did not know
who actually
committed the murder.
But I think everybody was
shocked when they realized
who was responsible.
Keith Palumbo was missing for
two months.
Once we recovered Keith's body,
it was classified as a murder.
Now we need to figure out what
happened to Keith.
We know that Warlock's leader,
Donna Morelli's property,
backs up to the border of
Mount Moriah Cemetery.
We thought could she or any
members of the Warlocks
Motorcycle Club be responsible
for Keith's murder?
We needed to see if we can get
somebody to talk about
what happened.
[Joseph]
I brought Donna Morelli into
the homicide unit
for questioning.
She admitted that
Michael DeLuca and another
prospect of the Warlocks,
Billy Gibson,
removed Keith's body
from the clubhouse,
[tarp rustling]
put him in the back of
her pickup truck,
and brought it back
to her house.
She indicated that she's
the one who opened the grave
for DeLuca and Billy Gibson.
[Joseph]
I asked her, "How did she open
up a 2,000 pound stone?"
And she said
"Detective, I could move
a jersey barrier with a 2x4."
[heavy stone scraping]
[suspenseful music playing]
[tarp rustling]
[muffled thud]
[stone scraping]
[Joseph]
When we questioned Donna
Morelli, she gave us a video
on her phone.
It clearly shows Michael DeLuca
and Billy Gibson pulling up in
the back of Donna Morelli's
property in her pickup truck,
and although you can't see
Keith's body, you can clearly
see the carpet and the padding
from the clubhouse
of the Warlocks.
We needed to speak with
DeLuca and Billy Gibson,
but Michael DeLuca was nowhere
to be found.
So we got an arrest
warrant for Billy Gibson.
[sirens wailing]
When we got back to
headquarters, he told us in
detail what happened to
Keith Palumbo.
Michael DeLuca was known as
Kaos, and that was
a pretty accurate nickname.
[Joseph]
As a reward for
participating in the murder,
Billy Gibson said he was then
patched in as an official
member of the Warlocks.
We knew Buck Evans,
he was still incarcerated on
the parole issue.
He also pointed the finger at
Michael DeLuca, and was probably
also involved in the murder.
We now had to go back to
Buck Evans.
Each one of those witnesses was
telling the story in a way that
minimized their own
involvement, which is not
something unusual at all.
Mike DeLuca was not around to
be able to defend himself.
We were unable to locate him
at that time.
[Joseph] We immediately,
uh, set wheels in motion
to locate
and arrest Michael DeLuca.
Coincidentally, we learned
Michael DeLuca was pulled over
by the police in
Cheyenne, Wyoming.
The police found a loaded
firearm in Michael DeLuca's
vehicle, and he was
subsequently arrested.
Buck Evans, Billy Gibson,
and Donna Morelli, they're all
pointing the finger at
Michael DeLuca.
The consistencies amongst
their, each one of
their stories of what happened,
showed that they were telling
the truth about Keith's murder.
[floorboards creaking]
[echoing footsteps]
[Joseph]
We believe on the night that
Keith was killed,
he had his mother's car.
Some point, he meets up with
club members, Buck Evans
and Billy Gibson,
they go to the clubhouse.
[door creaking]
DeLuca came out
with the firearm
[gun clicks]
and with no provocation,
shot Keith in
the face two times.
[gunshot blasts twice]
[high-pitched ringing]
After Keith was dumped in
the crypt, DeLuca instructed
Evans and Gibson to go up to
the Kensington area,
and dumped Keith's mother's car.
And then they all returned as
if nothing had ever happened.
Michael murdered his best
friend for selfish reasons.
He believed that
Keith Palumbo was a snitch.
He is a twisted individual.
[Bob]
Michael DeLuca pled guilty to
third-degree murder.
Consecutive to that ten-year
sentence for the Wyoming case
was a 15- to 35-year sentence
in Pennsylvania.
Buck Evans and Billy Gibson
each pled guilty to obstruction
of justice,
hindering, and related charges
to the disposal of
Keith's body.
We learned the other body found
inside that crypt
was David Rossillo.
He was a prospect
to the Warlocks.
He was shot and killed by
a Warlock named Michael DiMauro,
either late December of 2017
or very early in 2018.
For the David Rossillo case,
we relied heavily on
the testimony of Donna Morelli.
And she was given immunity for
her role in that murder.
With regards to Keith's murder,
she was sentenced to
11 and a half to 23 months,
followed by a period
of probation.
I've never seen anybody go to
this length to dispose of
a body and conceal the body.
And quite frankly, it worked.
I don't think that anybody
would have ever
found Keith had it not been for
the fact that
a police officer saw
the way that
the capstone had been moved.
We were able to lay Keith to
rest, which we were so happy
that we were able to do that.
When I think of what Keith
thought that night,
when he saw what
he was going to do,
I can't imagine what --
I can't imagine what
he was thinking,
because it was his best friend
pointing the gun in his face.
♪♪
The case was a true
whodunnit mystery.
An individual was burned
in two barrels.
He was just very cold
very calculated.
Whoever did this,
they had a plan.
It was one of those cases
where I thought
"Maybe we met our match."
[creaking]