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Joe Safrany had made it. He had posted bond, then walked away from his former life. Built a new identity, formed new friendships, found a new job. Then he saw himself as others did: a killer on the run.
By LANE DeGREGORY
© St. Petersburg Times, published April 13, 2003
The reckoning came on a Saturday night in September, in a first-floor room of a cheap motel beside the bus station in Dover, Del.
The fugitive was slumped on the bed, chain-smoking Marlboros. As worn out as the mattress.
The lights were off. The TV was on. He was waiting in dread for the show to start. He had seen the preview. He knew he would be on this episode.
He was trying to decide what to do.
That morning, in Philadelphia, he had bought a sleeping bag and a two-man tent. He told his roommates that he was going camping. He got on a Greyhound and rode until dark. Climbed off at Dover and checked into the motel. He asked for a room around back. Paid cash. He snapped his fingers to remind himself to sign the register right: Joe Brown.
For 15 months, he had been living with a dead man's name.
He turned up the volume on the TV. The episode opened in a parking lot: "Tonight, we're going after bad guys who use cars to kill," host John Walsh said. The golden logo of America's Most Wanted swallowed the screen. "And the chase is on for our first fugitive . . ."
He saw the crumpled car. He saw his mug shot. He heard John Walsh describe him as one of the country's worst criminals.
He sat there, smoking on the edge of the bed, with the blue TV light shooting shadows across his blank face and his image staring him down from the screen, and he saw himself as 10-million Americans were seeing him: a hunted killer.
And he knew, finally, what he had to do.
While Joseph Anthony Safrany was watching himself in Dover, Tampa Detective Jason Connell was in Washington, D.C., waiting for a call. Connell had been searching for Safrany for more than a year. He had worked the case since he was called to the crash site in April 2000.
Safrany was traveling at 73 mph in a 45 mph zone one morning when his Cadillac smashed into the side of a Honda, killing all three occupants. His blood-alcohol level was 0.18, more than twice the level at which someone can be convicted of drunken driving in Florida. After Safrany was released from the hospital, after his broken ribs healed, Connell charged him with three counts of DUI manslaughter and several other related offenses.
Two of the young men who died had been stationed at MacDill Air Force Base. All three had been drinking, including the driver. Troy Call, 24, had a higher blood-alcohol level than Safrany: 0.20. If he had survived, he would have been charged, too, the detective said.
Safrany's lawyer said he could get life in prison.
Two days after his 36th birthday, three weeks before his trial, Safrany disappeared.
The detective thought Safrany had killed himself. "You don't expect someone to just walk out of their life," Connell said.
For weeks, the detective searched for a corpse. Then he started trying to find Safrany. He interviewed 110 people and combed through dozens of Dumpsters. Finally, he got the case on TV.
So he sat there that night in the Fox network studios, waiting for the phones to ring, hoping someone would call in a tip.
"I thought we'd be looking for him forever," Connell said. "That guy's either a genius or he sure has a lot of dumb luck."
Safrany grew up in the Bronx with his parents, a younger brother and a sister. He played soccer and golf, and went to Mass on Sundays. After high school, he worked construction in Chicago and Denver.
He landed in Tampa when he was 21. He helped build big buildings. Then he started an industrial supply company, specializing in lighting.
Good-looking and gregarious, always quick to shake a stranger's hand, Safrany was a great salesman. His business grew so much that he had to add two partners. He was bringing in four figures a week. He had an apartment with a pool, a stray cat he called Scooby, a 1993 Cadillac and truckloads of friends. He bought a computer. He spent his weekend days on the beach with his buddies, his bachelor nights clubbing in Ybor City. He was loving life. Living large.
"I never thought it could all be over in a second," he said. "It could happen to anyone. But you never think it will be you."
On April 7, 2000, Safrany met some friends at a Tampa bar and had a few beers. He went back to one of their apartments about midnight to watch movies, he said. Just after 3 a.m., he headed home down Sheldon Road.
His memory about what happened next is hazy. He remembers feeling the thud and smashing his head against the steering wheel. Then seeing the crushed car, the shattered glass. All the blood.
A Honda coming from the other direction had turned left, in front of him. He had slammed into the passenger side. The Honda rolled 140 feet and landed upside down. "I never saw that car," Safrany said. "I never meant to hurt anyone."
He had been arrested before: cocaine possession, disorderly conduct and a DUI four years earlier. He had never served time in jail, though.
Now three people were dead.
And he was looking at life.
That's no life, he kept thinking.
"I wish I had died in that crash. Really," Safrany insisted. "I would much rather have had it end there."
But only part of him died that day. The upbeat, excitable, outgoing salesman was towed away with the Cadillac. Safrany shut down what was left.
He tried to make himself shower and shave. Feed the cat and take out the trash. He tried to work. But he couldn't concentrate. He couldn't sleep. He kept feeling the thud.
He hired well-known Tampa attorney Victor Pellegrino, who got his bail reduced from $250,000 to $55,000. Safrany posted his bond.
He stopped going out. He started seeing a therapist. He lost 20 pounds. He lost most of his business. He cried a lot and prayed a lot and went to confession for the first time in 15 years. He lighted candles and asked God to forgive him.
But he couldn't forgive himself.
"I didn't feel responsible for directly causing those deaths," said Safrany, who had planned to plead innocent. "But deep in my soul, I was hurting."
He kept attending court hearings. His case got continued a couple of times. Then, about a year after the accident, his lawyer told him that the trial was scheduled for the next month. And he leveled with him: You could die in prison.
"I started to panic," Safrany said.
He started weighing his options.
He could fight the charges and hope to go free, which he knew was a long shot. He could kill himself and get this all over with.
Or he could walk away.
But can you ever really escape yourself?
What happens when you try?
On the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend 2001, Safrany emptied his bank account of $2,500. He stuffed his good suit, two pairs of pants and a few shirts into a duffel. He packed two Deepak Chopra books. He wrapped socks around the golden walnut Christmas ornaments his father had made and set them gently on top. He zipped the bag.
That night, he threw himself a 36th birthday bash at Ybor's 1509 club.
A sort of Tom Sawyer funeral.
He invited friends he hadn't seen in years. He didn't tell anyone the real reason. He never expected to see them again.
After last call, he paid for vans to take people home, so no one would drive drunk.
The next night, he called a cab. Took it to the north end of the Sunshine Skyway bridge. Told the driver to drop him off there.
"You okay, buddy?" the driver asked. Safrany nodded and slung his bag over his shoulder. He started walking toward the water.
He thought about jumping.
He thought about people thinking he had jumped.
"I really didn't know, then, what I was going to do. Or how I was going to do it," he said.
"At first, I was just buying time."
He couldn't do it. He looked into the cold, black water below the bridge. And he couldn't do it.
He hitchhiked to the Amtrak station in Tampa. Bought a ticket to New York. Jumped off in Atlanta.
He grew a goatee, pulled a golf cap over his curly brown hair, bought clear glasses to hide his turquoise eyes and long-sleeved shirts to bury the Grim Reaper tattoo he had had etched on his right biceps when he was 14.
He hopped buses and more trains and more buses and took long, slow detours in taxis. He never told anyone who he was, where he had come from or where he was going. "It was horrible, zig-zagging around like that. I didn't sleep for days," Safrany said. "I didn't shower. People kept looking at me. Strangers staring. They must have known something was wrong. Or maybe I was just paranoid.
"I kept looking behind me. What was I doing? What had I done? What was I supposed to do now?"
When Safrany disappeared, his friends feared the worst. His friend Jill Whisenant picked up his cat. Someone else went by his apartment and pried open the patio door. Everything was as he had left it: clothes in the closet; computer, TV and stereo plugged in; dishes in the sink; bananas rotting in a bowl on the kitchen counter.
"All his friends kept calling each other, asking if anyone had heard from Joe," Whisenant said. "We were sure that if he was okay, he would let one of us know."
When Safrany didn't show up for court, Connell knew something was up.
The detective went to Safrany's apartment, to his friends' houses, pulled dozens of phone records and staked out scores of back doors. He threaded through the woods behind Whisenant's home, thinking Safrany might have offed himself there.
He culled computer files and called Safrany's parents in New York. "His mom just kept crying," Connell said. "She didn't know what had happened to him."
The detective had to call the victims' families, too. They already were upset that Safrany's bail had been reduced. They had planned to attend the trial to bring some closure to their pain.
But now there wasn't going to be a trial, Connell told them. The defendant had disappeared.
Connell promised he wouldn't give up.
For weeks, the detective kept searching. But he couldn't find a corpse.
Finally, about a month after Safrany vanished, the detective processed a warrant for unlawful flight. He called in the FBI. He started checking bus records, train tickets and airline reservations.
But by then Safrany's trail had gone cold.
By then, Joe Safrany was Joe Brown.
The real Joe Brown had died a couple of years earlier, in California. He had been born the same year as Joe Safrany. Like Safrany, he had been white and Catholic.
Safrany found him on the Internet, on the California death registry. He scoured Joe Brown's obituary in an electronic archive, unearthed the names of his parents. He discovered his birth date. He learned that Brown had been born in Kentucky.
He liked the name. It was easy to remember. Easy to spell. It was generic. It would help him blend in.
So Safrany got off a train in Philadelphia. He rented a room at a Holiday Inn. He came up with a great story, the consummate salesman's pitch, a tale that would make strangers sympathetic instead of suspicious.
Then he went to a library and downloaded forms from the Kentucky registrar's office. He requested a copy of Joe Brown's birth certificate and sent a $5 money order from 7-Eleven. When the birth certificate came, he applied for a library card. Then a Social Security card. Then a Pennsylvania state ID.
He figured out things as he went along. He practiced his new signature on the back of each new document. Every time he had to write his name, he decided, he would snap his fingers to remind himself who he was supposed to be.
With proof of his new identity, Joe Brown rented an apartment. He was approved for credit cards he would never have to pay off. He opened a bank account. He was issued a Pennsylvania driver's license. He started searching for a new career.
He scoured the classifieds and found a job selling alarm systems as a telemarketer.
"He came in out of the blue and shook my hand, and I liked him instantly," said Chuck Maston, who hired Joe Brown without knowing his past. "He turned out to be the best salesman around here. He ended up earning a whole office of awards."
Joe Brown said that he was from Chicago. His apartment had burned down. He had lost everything: clothes, books, furniture, photographs, legal papers. He had run a construction business there, he said. But all the records went up in flames.
Everyone felt sorry for him. Everyone thought they understood why he seemed so sad, so reserved. No one wanted to pry.
"You could kind of tell something was up with him. But he was such a good guy. I just thought it was something personal, and I didn't want to push him," Jason Cardullo said. Cardullo's brother sold security systems with Joe Brown. When Cardullo needed another guy to share his house in west Philly, he asked Joe Brown to move in. They were roommates for more than a year.
"We'd make dinner and rent movies and go bowling every once in a while," said Cardullo, 31, who manages a mattress store. "We dragged him out to the happening clubs once or twice. But Joe Brown didn't want to go out all that much. In hindsight, it all kind of makes sense."
Cardullo and his brother never called Joe Brown "Joe." "It was always Joe Brown," he said. "We liked to kid him about it."
They didn't know that their teasing was torture.
"Joe Brown?" they would say. "What kind of a name is that? That's not your real name."
Safrany would nod. "Sure," he would say, sweating under his salesman's smile.
"You're right. I'm a fugitive, running from the law."
If you stop talking to everyone you know, if you let your family and friends think you're dead, if you don't look back and you try to block it out, can you will your old life to evaporate?
"There was nothing inside me," Safrany said. "I was miserable.
"I didn't know who I was."
He started writing a journal, a sort of dialogue with himself, conversations he could never have. He found a new therapist. And a new priest. "But I didn't want to make them worry about whether they should keep my secret," he said. So he lied to them, too. And to his co-workers, his roommates, himself. He couldn't go to company banquets to accept his awards because he was afraid someone would take his picture. He couldn't go into post offices because he might be on a wanted poster. He couldn't even watch football without worrying that he would give himself away.
"The closest I ever got to outing myself was during a Bucs-Eagles game," he said. "All my buddies up there were Eagles fans. And of course I wanted to cheer for the Bucs. But why would a guy from Chicago back the Bucs, right?"
He kept snapping his fingers to keep from rooting for the wrong side.
For more than a year, Safrany continued the charade. He got a promotion at work, found friends who listened to trance music and read philosophy. His boss gave him a Pontiac, the first car he had had since the accident. He filled out a passport application. Studied up on South America.
If he kept running, he thought, his past wouldn't catch him.
Then he saw the preview for that episode ofAmerica's Most Wanted. That's why he bought the camping equipment. That's why he took the bus to Dover.
But on that Saturday night in September, as he sat alone smoking in that first-floor motel room, with the blue TV light shooting shadows across his blank face, and his image staring him down from the screen, he saw the man he had been.
And the man he had become.
That first time, he hadn't had a choice. He had never intended any harm. The accident had just happened, and all of the sudden, he had become a wanted killer.
But he had decided to leave.
He had made himself a fugitive.
"I was never free out there," he said. Joe Brown could never be free.
He shouldered his backpack while the show was still on. Pocketed his Marlboros. Tipped his golf hat toward his face, in case. Closed the motel room door behind him. Walked back to the bus station.
He had to face the man he had been running from all along: himself.
"I went back to Philly and told my roommates goodbye," he said. "I didn't tell them where I was going. But I told them what had happened."
Cardullo wasn't surprised. Compared with all the scenarios he had spun about Joe Brown, he said, the truth paled. "Nothing he could have done would have changed the way I felt about the guy," his former roommate said. "Joe Brown is one in a million. He'll always be Joe Brown to me."
For Safrany, telling his roommates was a relief. He felt so much better. Maybe he wasn't really ready to give up.
The next day, he bought a train ticket to San Diego. Maybe he would go ahead and get his passport there. He rode the rails as far as Chicago, then bailed.
Maybe it was because Joe Brown was supposed to have come from Chicago. Maybe Joe Safrany wanted to dump Joe Brown there.
Maybe he realized that he could keep fleeing forever, but he could never escape himself.
"I figured I had more reasons to come back than I had to stay away," he said.
He caught a cab from the Chicago train station to a Hyatt and checked into an upstairs room. He ordered steak, a bottle of chardonnay and creme brulee from room service. He sat on the edge of the bed, chain-smoking Marlboros, with the lights off and the TV on. Savoring his last supper.
The next morning, he called his parents, his sister and his friend Jill Whisenant. He told them that he was coming back. He boarded a Greyhound bus to Tampa. When he got in, he walked to the pay phone and dialed 911.
"My name is Joe Safrany," he said for the first time in 15 months.
While Safrany was closing the door on his Dover motel room, Jason Connell, the detective, was taking calls from the studios of America's Most Wanted.
One of Safrany's co-workers from the alarm company called. Joe Safrany was Joe Brown, the tipster said. He was selling security systems in Philadelphia.
Connell alerted FBI agents, who got to Safrany's house the next day. But Safrany was gone.
Then Connell heard that Safrany was on the Amtrak train heading for California. FBI agents stopped the train in Albuquerque. Safrany was supping in Chicago.
"We never thought he'd come back on his own," the detective said. "But I was relieved. I was tired of chasing him."
Prosecutor Donna Hanes says that she doesn't know whether Safrany's flight will be brought up during his trial.
Usually, fleeing is a sign of guilt. But when you turn yourself in, does that mitigate the aggravating circumstance? Or does it aggravate the mitigating circumstances?
Would jurors think worse of him because he ran? Or better of him because he came back?
"He made a mistake. But he came back of his own accord, and he's ready to face it," says Assistant Public Defender Harvey Hyman, who was assigned to represent Safrany. "You don't see too many fugitives giving themselves up. In a way, I kind of admire the guy.
"I know I would never have come back."
He told his story through the thick glass of a visiting room window and from inside a guarded room.
His trial starts June 2.
"This is no life, it's true. But it's my life now, again. And I feel better in here than I ever did out there," he said last week, shouting through the bulletproof glass. "I can talk to my family and friends.
"I can fight for who I am."