Governor asked to free 'Crazy Joe'
Dublin Core
Title
Governor asked to free 'Crazy Joe'
Subject
Capital punishment
Testimony
Chiles, Lawton, 1930-1998
Description
This is an article describing the admittance that a testimony previously given in trial of Joe Spaziano was false. Spaziano's lawyer Michael Mello has asked the governor to free Spaziano, while the police are certain that Spaziano is still the culprit.
Creator
Rozsa, Lori
Source
The Herald
Section B, 5B
Publisher
HIST 298, University of Mary Washington
Date
1995-06-30
Rights
The materials in this online collection are held by Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington and are available for educational use. For this purpose only, you may reproduce materials without prior permission on the condition that you provide attribution of the source.
Format
2 JPGs
300 dpi
Language
English
Coverage
FL
Text Item Type Metadata
Text
ORLANDO - As his attorney makes a plea for clemency, investigators with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement are deepening their investigation into the 22-year-old murder case against condemned pris-oner Joseph “Crazy Joe” Spaziano. Gov. Lawton Chiles is being asked to absolve Spaziano of the charges that have kept him on Death Row since 1976. The former motorcycle gang leader was scheduled to be executed Tuesday, but Chiles granted an indefinite stay June 15 after the state’s main witness recanted key testimony.
That witness, Anthony Dilisio of Pensacola, now says that what he testified two decades ago wasn’t true. He said he was coerced by the police- and his father- to make damning statements against Spaziano.
Dilisio told The Herald this week that his memory is clearer about the time in his life when, as a teenager, he was the star witness in a sensational murder trial and a rape trial. He has offered to take a lie detector test, but the FDLE, which had scheduled one two weeks ago, has not contacted him since.
Police and Dilisio said it was his father, Ralph Dilisio, who told investigators in 1974 to question him about the so-called “Garbage Dump Murders” involving five bodies found around a rural dumping ground near Orlando. Spaziano was having an affair with Dilisio’s step-mother, and Ralph Dilisio told police Spaziano has raped the woman.
Ralph Dilisio who died in 1991, had told friends in the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office that Spaziano had bragged to him and his son about raping and mutilating women in the Orlando area.
Police found the young Dilisio at a Key witness says his dad had grudge drug rehabilitation center. “I can now remember the room, the people. I can draw you a picture of it,” said Dilisio, who said that for 20 years he has erased from his mind his troubled teenage years.
“My dad was out to get Joe because of my stepmother,” Dilisio said. “I remember the police told me my dad said this, and my dad said that, and was it true? He was the first one to tell me about it.”
Officers had Dilisio, then 16, hypnotized him to help him remember details that said he’d suppressed because the memories were so traumatic. Under hypnosis, Dilisio told a macabre tale of Spaziano taking him out to a dump two years earlier and showing him two women’s bodies.
One body was that of Orlando hospital clerk Laura Lynn Harberts, 18. The other was never identified.
“I can remember them telling me how important this case is,” Dilisio said. In a 1974 rape trial in which Spaziano was convicted and sentenced to life, and in the 1976 murder trial in which he was convicted and sentenced to death, Dilisio was the key witness. He testified that Spaziano not only bragged about raping and killing women, but showed him the two bodies at the dump.
Dilisio, now a lay preacher and auto restorer, now says it was all a fantasy. He said the first time he saw the dump was when police took him there, and he never saw any bodies.
“That’s a bunch of crap,” he said. He said he doesn’t know whether Spaziano is guilty or innocent, but only that his trial testimony was unreliable.
He said nobody threatened or coerced him to make the statements he’s now making. FDLE investigators videotaped an interview with Dilisio two weeks ago, which hasn’t been made public.
“He told them he never went to the dump with Spaziano,” said Dilisio’s attorney, Kelly McGraw, who sat in on the interview with FDLE agents. “I don’t see how they can say that’s not a change.”
Spaziano’s attorney, Vermont law school Professor Michael Mello, said he’s looking forward to reviewing the FDLE report, although investigators say it won’t be presented to the gover-nor any time soon.
“My concern is that FDLE is picking back over case files and information that was so useless and unreliable that even a gung-ho prosecutor who was out the nail the president of the Orlando chapter of the Outlaws didn’t see fit to even try to get into evidence.”
Mello sent a new clemency plea to Chiles this week, asking him to free Spaziano because the rape and murder cases against him were fraught with errors and were based largely on Dilisio’s now-questionable testimony.
But investigators say they’re sure they got the right man all those years ago.
“Everybody was solidly convinced,” said retired Seminole County sheriff’s officer Ray Parker, who now reviews old cases from the department.
“There’s not a doubt in the world he did it.”
That witness, Anthony Dilisio of Pensacola, now says that what he testified two decades ago wasn’t true. He said he was coerced by the police- and his father- to make damning statements against Spaziano.
Dilisio told The Herald this week that his memory is clearer about the time in his life when, as a teenager, he was the star witness in a sensational murder trial and a rape trial. He has offered to take a lie detector test, but the FDLE, which had scheduled one two weeks ago, has not contacted him since.
Police and Dilisio said it was his father, Ralph Dilisio, who told investigators in 1974 to question him about the so-called “Garbage Dump Murders” involving five bodies found around a rural dumping ground near Orlando. Spaziano was having an affair with Dilisio’s step-mother, and Ralph Dilisio told police Spaziano has raped the woman.
Ralph Dilisio who died in 1991, had told friends in the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office that Spaziano had bragged to him and his son about raping and mutilating women in the Orlando area.
Police found the young Dilisio at a Key witness says his dad had grudge drug rehabilitation center. “I can now remember the room, the people. I can draw you a picture of it,” said Dilisio, who said that for 20 years he has erased from his mind his troubled teenage years.
“My dad was out to get Joe because of my stepmother,” Dilisio said. “I remember the police told me my dad said this, and my dad said that, and was it true? He was the first one to tell me about it.”
Officers had Dilisio, then 16, hypnotized him to help him remember details that said he’d suppressed because the memories were so traumatic. Under hypnosis, Dilisio told a macabre tale of Spaziano taking him out to a dump two years earlier and showing him two women’s bodies.
One body was that of Orlando hospital clerk Laura Lynn Harberts, 18. The other was never identified.
“I can remember them telling me how important this case is,” Dilisio said. In a 1974 rape trial in which Spaziano was convicted and sentenced to life, and in the 1976 murder trial in which he was convicted and sentenced to death, Dilisio was the key witness. He testified that Spaziano not only bragged about raping and killing women, but showed him the two bodies at the dump.
Dilisio, now a lay preacher and auto restorer, now says it was all a fantasy. He said the first time he saw the dump was when police took him there, and he never saw any bodies.
“That’s a bunch of crap,” he said. He said he doesn’t know whether Spaziano is guilty or innocent, but only that his trial testimony was unreliable.
He said nobody threatened or coerced him to make the statements he’s now making. FDLE investigators videotaped an interview with Dilisio two weeks ago, which hasn’t been made public.
“He told them he never went to the dump with Spaziano,” said Dilisio’s attorney, Kelly McGraw, who sat in on the interview with FDLE agents. “I don’t see how they can say that’s not a change.”
Spaziano’s attorney, Vermont law school Professor Michael Mello, said he’s looking forward to reviewing the FDLE report, although investigators say it won’t be presented to the gover-nor any time soon.
“My concern is that FDLE is picking back over case files and information that was so useless and unreliable that even a gung-ho prosecutor who was out the nail the president of the Orlando chapter of the Outlaws didn’t see fit to even try to get into evidence.”
Mello sent a new clemency plea to Chiles this week, asking him to free Spaziano because the rape and murder cases against him were fraught with errors and were based largely on Dilisio’s now-questionable testimony.
But investigators say they’re sure they got the right man all those years ago.
“Everybody was solidly convinced,” said retired Seminole County sheriff’s officer Ray Parker, who now reviews old cases from the department.
“There’s not a doubt in the world he did it.”
Original Format
newspaper
Contributor of the Digital Item
Libka, Darby
Student Editor of the Digital Item
Williams, Megan
Files
Citation
Rozsa, Lori, “Governor asked to free 'Crazy Joe',” HIST299, accessed July 12, 2026, https://hist299.umwhistory.org/items/show/181.