They never found the bodies.
And that, says an angry Sam Siligato, is because there never were any.
"If I was gonna whack somebody," Siligato said last week, "I wouldn't bury them under the house I live in."
Yet back on July 15, 1985, that's just what the New Jersey State Police charged. For three days, using jackhammers, a backhoe and shovels, they searched for the remains of a man and a woman that "confidential sources" said Siligato had boasted of killing.
"We got wet and dirty," a state police detective later told a grand jury. ''We didn't find anything."
Now it is Siligato's turn to dig. And the result could affect the way law enforcement conducts its business.
Four years ago, Siligato sued, contending that the state violated his civil rights. He sought compensatory and punitive damages, including an estimated $180,000 to repair his property and $100,000 in legal fees. He also demanded the name of the source who set the investigation in motion.
Last month, in the latest round of what has become a protracted legal battle, Atlantic County Superior Court Judge Michael R. Connor ordered the state police to identify that source.
Law enforcement officials, fearing that the order would set a dangerous precedent, are balking.
"The New Jersey State Police has a policy to protect the confidentiality of its informants," said Deputy Attorney General Matthew R. Gabrielson, who is representing the state in the civil suit. Gabrielson, who plans to appeal, said the ruling would have a "chilling effect" on law enforcement's ability to develop sources.
Siligato, 41, a burly construction company owner identified by the state as an organized crime associate, argues that there is a greater principle involved. He and his family, he said, were forced to live under the cloud of a murder investigation based on false and misleading information developed by overzealous state police investigators.
"I'm not doing this for the money," he said of the civil suit. "I'm doing it to clear my name and to prove that (the police) fabricated this whole story."
Authorities are refusing to identify the source, he said, "because there is no source." The state's case, Siligato said, "was a lot of bull."
A spokesman for the New Jersey State Police declined to comment last week
because the lawsuit is still pending. In court papers filed in the case, however, law enforcement officials have defended the need to protect sources and have denied that there was any impropriety in the investigation.
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