Son's lust for family fortune behind death plot, police say

He's accused of trying to arrange the murders of his three brothers and his mother, a Clearwater philanthropist.

By EDIE GROSS and ERIC STIRGUS

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 5, 2000

Outside the gilded gates of one of Pinellas County's finest communities, beyond the yacht club dining halls, no one wants to talk about it.

One by one, they will tick off Carolyn Hunter's accomplishments, the generous gifts she and her late husband have bestowed upon the community.

The benefits the couple hosted for the Upper Pinellas Association for Retarded Citizens. The valuable land at the north tip of Clearwater Beach that they set aside for a bird sanctuary. The donations to Morton Plant Hospital.

But the other topic, the one that is so unbelievable, so unacceptable, is off-limits.

"I don't care to discuss it," said a woman who lives up the street from Carolyn Hunter's $4-million home on Clearwater Beach.

"No comment," said a fellow Junior League member, along with Belleair's former mayor and a Ruth Eckerd Hall board member.

What has rattled them so? This quiet philanthropist, this 72-year-old mother of four who resides at the northernmost tip of Clearwater Beach had a price on her head.

Police say her eldest son wanted her dead.

The scheme, allegedly hatched 1,400 miles away in Des Moines, Iowa, is bizarre in its own right, a tale of gun silencers, a diamond ring and acid packs. What's stranger still is it involved the Hunter family -- testaments to Iowa and Pinellas County refinement, power and wealth.

A family member's words may have captured it best:

"If there were a way it could be understood simply, it would be," one of Carolyn Hunter's four sons told the Times. "It's far too complex."

A section of the gift shop at the Des Moines International Airport pays homage to the John Deere tractor: there are Deere T-shirts, teddy bears and coasters made to look like tractor headlights.

Iowans joke that the state's crop rotation goes something like this: corn, soybeans and Florida, where farmers with money head for the winter.

The Hunter family made money off the land, too, just not the farming kind.

Carolyn Hunter's husband, Ed Sr., and his brother, John Hunter, owned apartment buildings, hotels and commercial real estate in Des Moines. They also owned Hiland Potato Chip, a famous snack company in the region that bragged about producing the "chippiest chip around."

In the 1950s, they brought their business acumen to Florida, buying an interest in the historic Clearwater Beach Hotel. They became sole owners in 1976.

Peter Hunter, said family members, believed the whole operation would be his one day.

Peter, 50, was the oldest of Carolyn and Edwin Hunter Sr.'s four sons. He grew up in the wealthiest enclave of Iowa's capital city, a neighborhood of spacious, hilltop homes hemmed in by acres of woods, the Raccoon River and aptly named Grand Avenue.

He spent his teen years boarding and studying at the elite Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire before moving on to Princeton University and the Wharton School of Business.

By 25, he had trotted much of the globe. But it was to Des Moines he returned, determined to emulate his powerful father and direct the potato chip company, family and associates said.

Not long after he graduated from Wharton, his father installed him as president of Hiland in 1975.

Around the office, Ed Hunter Sr. wasn't given to pleasantries. He was a just-the-facts kind of boss. An Iowa judge once referred to him and his business partners as "high-powered, 24-cylinder, sophisticated men."

Peter took after him, said Ron Vander Leest, who became vice president of production for Hiland when Peter took over.

"He let us know that he wasn't planning on having anybody around there that knew more about the place than he did," said Vander Leest. "He and his dad had big egos."

He spent thousands remodeling his office, referred to as the "Taj Mahal," Vander Leest said. When the company did well, he took credit. When it fared poorly, he shifted blame, Vander Leest said.

"The first year he was president, we made more money than the company ever made. His dad made the remark, "Wow, we should've done this a long time ago. This kid's smart,"' Vander Leest recalled. "But the year the company did so well, we had three other (officers) who were working as a team to make things go. He wasn't all that sharp. One of the guys told him he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He didn't appreciate that."

Vander Leest, a 17-year employee of Hiland, said the family used profits from the potato chip company to furnish the Clearwater Beach Hotel, a practice he didn't appreciate.

"It kept us on a pretty short rope trying to keep the bills paid at Hiland," said Vander Leest, who left the company in 1978 at Peter's urging.

Over the next 10 years, Hiland struggled to keep its market share as larger potato chip companies took over grocery store shelves.

In 1988, Ed Sr. and brother John made the decision to sell. Jim Dixon, Ed Sr.'s longtime accountant, said Peter objected and even blamed his father and uncle for the company's failure to thrive.

"The loss of Hiland I think affected him," Dixon would later tell police. "I didn't know him that well, but in my meetings with him afterward, I thought he was a little depressed."

Those closest to Peter Hunter speculate about the forces that may have led to his current troubles: The loss of his title, the loss of his father, the loss of his marriage, the loss of what he felt was owed to him.

After Hiland's sale, Peter shut himself in his $700,000 home for days and weeks at a time, ignoring the ringing phone, doing jigsaw and crossword puzzles by himself, his ex-wife would tell police.

He was prone to outbursts, Jan Hunter told police after Peter's arrest. Once, she said, a driver backed into the couple's driveway while he was standing there. Enraged, he chased the other car in his Jaguar, and when he caught up to it, he beat on its hood and threatened the occupants, she said.

Papers filed in the couple's 1997 divorce indicate that Peter was taking lithium for anxiety and major depression.

"They used to say if Pete would take his medicine he would be okay," Dixon said. "Sometimes he wouldn't take his medicine."

When Ed Sr. died in 1992, it was Carolyn Hunter and son Jeff, not Peter, who began managing the family's hotel holdings. He also willed his $3.9-million fortune to his wife.

Peter "had hoped that . . . he would succeed his father in a patriarchal role and eventually manage the family's hotel business. But in fact what happened was his brother Jeffrey gradually worked into that role, and Peter was pretty much passed over," Jan Hunter said in court documents.

"He became even more despondent when his family didn't acknowledge him to be in the position that he thought he should be in, which was, you know, as head of the family structure," she said.

The man who once cut a confident figure in academic and business circles retreated from the country club life. His contacts with his family were limited, and he often seemed frustrated and angry, court records indicate.

Dan Hunter -- a humorist, songwriter and playwright -- said his brother's unpredictable behavior made him apprehensive.

"In many of the meetings we had, I was scared . . . to be in the room with him," Dan Hunter told police.

"The consistent pattern for me has been that the anger and the rage, you know, like somebody coiled and ready to strike, was way out of proportion to the issues that were at stake," he said. "This is a family that has tried to give Peter everything he's wanted, and one of the reasons that I've not had contact with him is that I don't agree with the family. We just cave into his every whim or his every demand."

The murder plot, as outlined by Des Moines police, could have been a script lifted from a bad made-for-TV movie: Disgruntled family member meets maintenance man and hires him to kill his mother and brothers under extraordinarily violent circumstances. Maintenance man, a convicted felon, has change of heart and tells police.

Peter Hunter was managing the Windsor Terrace apartments for his mother when he hired resident Nino DiPietro, 25, to do odd jobs around the complex. DiPietro told police in October 1999 that Peter approached him about killing his family. According to court records, Hunter's instructions to DiPietro were very specific.

DiPietro was to travel to Cambridge, Mass., and shoot Hunter's brother, Dan, with 9mm handguns outfitted with silencers.

He would then go to Carolyn Hunter's waterfront home in Clearwater, cut off one of her fingers and steal her diamond ring.

DiPietro claims that Hunter actually had him place a homemade bomb under brother Ed Jr.'s car on Oct. 9. When the bomb failed to explode, DiPietro said he removed it and made plans with Hunter to place acid packs with tacks inside them in the car.

Brother Jeff's demise was still waiting to be planned when police arrested Peter Oct. 23 at a Des Moines Holiday Inn after videotaping him arranging the killings with DiPietro.

Court records indicate that Peter offered him $20,000 each to kill Carolyn Hunter and brothers Jeff, Dan and Ed Jr., plus another $100,000 when all the jobs were done. The deal also included another $2,000 if DiPietro would beat up Dixon, the family accountant.

Peter was charged with 16 felonies, ranging from attempt to commit murder to conspiracy to commit willful injury. His family was stunned, and some rallied to his side, especially Jeff.

It was Jeff who showed up in court and placed his arm around his handcuffed brother. It was Jeff who posted $50,000 to spring Peter out of jail. When a judge ordered Peter not to contact his family, Jeff insisted that Peter be allowed to talk to him.

But Jeff had the no-contact order reinstated in February after he viewed his brother and DiPietro on the hotel videotape.

Maggi Moss, Peter's attorney, has publicly stated that she believes DiPietro is an unreliable witness against her client. She did not return repeated phone calls.

Moss has filed paperwork indicating that she is considering an insanity defense for Peter.

Peter Hunter, who did not return phone calls, is out on bond until his May 15 trial. He is monitored by electronic surveillance at home and is forbidden from contacting members of his family. Carolyn Hunter has borne the pain of her son's actions in silence, say those close to her. But they expect her character to see her through.

"She's a very brave person and whatever the problem is, I think she'll handle it," said Bernie Powell, former owner of the Belleview Biltmore and a friend for the past 10 years.

"I feel so sorry for Carolyn because she's such a private person," said Maggie Douglas, who raised money for charity with Carolyn Hunter. "She has not even confided in anyone. She feels this is her own private nightmare."

-- Times researcher Caryn Baird and the Des Moines Register contributed to this report.

Hunter family statement

"The Hunter family cherishes the quiet, but productive role we have worked hard for in Florida. We are grateful for the loyalty of so many friends and supporters throughout Pinellas County who have wished us well and have supported our family's right to and need for privacy under circumstances which no family should ever suffer.

Our family's personal interest and love for Clearwater Beach dates back to the 1920s. It is an affection that has grown through the years. Just as we respect the natural beauty and traditions of Florida, we ask fellow Floridians to respect our need for privacy."

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