Mystery: Trashed
ON OCTOBER 18, 2007, Detective William Scull drove over the Ben Franklin Bridge and into Center City, at the invitation of the Vidocq Society.
The Vidocq (“vee-DOCK”) Society was founded 18 years ago by three men: a retired federal agent, a psychological profiler, and a world-renowned facial reconstruction sculptor. Originally a social club for criminologists, forensic experts and other law-enforcement types, the society, named after 19th-century French criminal-turned-legendary-detective Éugène-François Vidocq, has matured into an esteemed think tank of 115 members (among them Lynne Abraham) who meet monthly at the Downtown Club near Independence Mall.
Scull, who agreed to present the Fiocco case to the society at the request of John’s family and their lawyer, arrived at the Public Ledger Building before noon, smartly dressed in a dark suit and tie. He took the elevator to the top floor. The shades, as usual, were drawn. The room is cherrywood-paneled, with thick, patterned rugs and brass chandeliers. The members, also dressed formally, sat four or five to a table. There is no press, no lawyers, no note- or picture-taking.
At a reserved table near the front of the room, Scull ate lunch — garden salad, rosemary chicken, wild rice and a vegetable, and a dessert of chocolate cake with coffee. Once the plates were collected, he began.
Standing at a lectern for almost two hours, a large screen projecting his PowerPoint presentation, Scull methodically outlined his investigation. He showed 260 slides — photos of the dormitory, Fiocco’s room, Jessie’s, the basement, the chute, the trash compactor, the container, Fiocco’s blood, the landfill, the remains. He shared the most substantive contents of the hundreds of interviews he’d conducted.
The Vidocq members began to debate. Quickly, they, too, dismissed the possibility that Fiocco’s body had ever been in the chute. His relationship with Jessie, though, was a source of intrigue. They asked questions, talked about suicide. There was apparently evidence that John may have been depressed. Unrequited love? The majority was dubious; there was no note, not to mention the choice of trash compactor as instrument.
They moved on to foul play. What if Fiocco had gone to the basement compactor room for some reason and interrupted something? Some of the workers in the building’s cafeteria were convicted criminals, complete with ankle bracelets. Did Fiocco walk in on a drug deal? A sexual situation? But there was no indication in the compactor room of any struggle. Murder seemed unlikely, given it would have to have occurred upstairs in the dorm — noisy — and required carrying a body to the basement or outside unnoticed. Again, no physical evidence.
Which begged the question: Why was John Fiocco in the basement?
A theory emerged:
It’s between 4 and 7 a.m. The dorm is quiet. Asleep on the fourth floor, John wakes up, realizes he’s alone, pulls the covers back, leaves Jessie’s bed.
He opens the door. Walks out into the dimmed hallway. Perhaps he first heads to the bathroom. But something’s on his mind. On his way back to bed, he opens the door to the floor’s trash room. It’s a small space, the size of a closet. He reaches for the cumbersome spring-loaded door, pulls it open, tosses in an object, which he watches briefly tumble into the dark. Or perhaps he’s done this hours earlier, thrown out this object, and is only just recalling the fact. In either case, he’s now regretful.
