My Thoughts: Tim Iannone

Dateline featured “Cape Fear: N.C. town paralyzed after murders” last week, and profiled a cold case squad who attempted to bring new insight to the murders of both Allison Foy and Angela Rothen. Both women were found next to each other in a wooded area often frequented by prostitutes, murdered by a knife, potentially a year apart, and both were likely sexually assaulted.

One suspect in the case came forward and agreed to speak to Dateline: Tim Iannone and his wife, Susan. Tim wasn’t on the radar until his wife, Susan, wrote the private investigator on the case, and said he should look at her husband. She said she just wanted to clear his name from the rumor mill.

My review is long, so bear with me. I think my end thoughts may surprise you!

Read moreHere are my thoughts on Tim and Susan Iannone:

1. When Tim is talking to news reporters outside his house, he is actually smiling when he says, “They’ve got the wrong guy. That’s all I have to say.” Why is he smiling? This is a red flag.
2. Susan wants us to believe she wrote the investigator to help clear her husband’s name, and I’m flat out not buying it. I suspect she got mad at some point, and perhaps afraid that there might be some truth to the story, she lashed out in an emotional state. Susan is one who has a hard time with her emotions, if you want my opinion.
   
   

   Josh Mankiewicz: How and why did you reach out to Marc Benson, the private eye?

   Susan Iannone: Truthfully? And this will be the first time that my husband’s ever heard this. And if I have tears, you’ll understand that. I feel responsible for all this. And he doesn’t even know it. Rumors were going around that my husband had something to do with Allison. Well, that made me mad.

   Does anyone really believe this is the first time she is telling her husband this? I’m certainly not. Does she feel responsible for putting him in the spotlight? Absolutely.

   Watch when Susan says, “first time my husband’s ever heard this”, notice her shake her head in a yes movement? It’s as if she is answering her own question. It’s fascinating. I believe this is an involuntary response. Often deceptive people do this.

3. When Mankiewicz asked Tim to tell us what happened with Sonya, the prostitute, he says with an obvious smile that he can’t talk about it due to potential civil litigation. Notice how Susan steps right up and tries to tell us Sonya stole from Tim? Why didn’t Tim say that? Tim responds, again:
   
   

   Tim Iannone: She stole from me, more or less. But there was no assault. No beating. The worst thing I ever did was pull her hair to keep her from running. But it was not an attack, a rape. It was nothing like that.

   The words “more or less” are interesting. Either she stole, or she didn’t. This is a big red flag. Also, if Tim grabbed her by her hair to keep her from running, wouldn’t he have been able to get his stolen property back? He is obviously a big guy capable of overpowering a woman. When Tim continues to talk, he shows positive emotions again. He seems to get very positive feelings when talking about all of this. I can’t help but wonder why. If you are wrongly accused, you don’t feel like smiling. This is a big red flag.

4. When Mankiewicz asks Susan if she believes he didn’t attack Williams, she really struggles when she says, “Yes”. Watch her scrunch up her mouth. It shows she is struggling with this answer. It’s notable and obvious. Why does she struggle with this?
5. Tim tells Mankiewicz that Williams was the only prostitute he picked up, but Dateline found another woman who admitted to being with him. They interviewed her, and I believed her. Later on, Dateline reported that the police said that Tim told them he had picked up nine prostitutes. There are too many people who are telling a different story than Tim. This shows us Tim is inconsistent and not trustworthy.
6. The interview goes on:
   

   Josh Mankiewicz: Is Sonia Williams the only prostitute you’ve ever picked up?

   Tim Iannone: Yes. (Notice how soft-spoken he is when he says this?)

   Josh Mankiewicz: So other prostitutes who say that you’ve assaulted them, they’re also lying?

   Tim Iannone: Yes.

   Josh Mankiewicz: And they’d be doing that why?

   Tim Iannone: I have no idea.

   When Tim says “I have no idea”, there is a positive emotion on his face again. Why?

7. Susan Iannone then says, “Sometimes you have to consider the source, be it right, be it wrong.”

   Isn’t this the most ironic statement? She sits next to her husband, who visited prostitutes, admits to having oral sex with Williams, and admittedly has lied to her, but she tells us we shouldn’t trust a prostitute? Who has the history of lying here? Her husband or the prostitute?? Unbelievable.

   Josh Mankiewicz: Meaning that a prostitute’s word is worth less than a guy who works for a living?

   Susan Iannone: In my opinion, sure.

8. When Tim says he doesn’t have an alibi for that night, it’s amazing how Susan just steps in again. We later hear her change her story, so we know she wasn’t honest here.
   
   

   Josh Mankiewicz: What’s your alibi for the night that Allison disappeared?

   Tim Iannone: I don’t have one. I don’t know where I was that night. I mean, I was home, I would guess.

   Susan Iannone: I do! We were home by seven o’clock. And that’s where we stayed. That’s where he was.

   Josh Mankiewicz: You’re his alibi?

   Susan Iannone: Yes. I’da knocked him out if he wasn’t at home with me!

   When Susan speaks up like this, you can see this cocky grin on her face. It’s out of place, but more than that, her answer is funny. It’s out of character for her and her situation with Tim. She tells us she would have knocked him out. Wait a minute. This is a woman who is still with him after he has lied to her, been with a prostitute, and has multiple other prostitutes accusing him of abuse, and she wants us to believe she puts her foot down in this marriage? It’s a complete contradiction to her behavior pattern already defined. It’s nonsense by this fact alone. I knew instantly it was B.S., because her story flat out doesn’t match her known behaviors.

9. When Mankiewicz talks about all circumstances that make Tim a reasonable suspect, Tim smirks when he says, “I would have looked at me.” Tim seems to really enjoy this.
10. When Mankiewicz ask if Tim is a murderer, I am troubled by his soft tone when he says, “No”. He uses the same tone in the other responses during the interview. It’s very notable to me. When people believe something, especially something this serious, there is usually conviction in there voice, which is clearly missing here. Tim is also a man who likely has a temper, and when he feels violated, he is not one to hold it back.
    
    

    Josh Mankiewicz: Did you kill Allison Foy?

    Tim Iannone: No.

    Josh Mankiewicz: Did you kill Angela Rothen?

    Tim Iannone: No.

11. Mankiewicz continues….
    
    

    Josh Mankiewicz: What do you think happened to those women?

    Tim Iannone: I couldn’t even speculate. I don’t know what kind of mind could contemplate doing something like that. I have no idea.

    Notice how when Tim speaks here, again, he is smirking and then flat out smiling. It’s very interesting and highly notable. Why does he feel such positive emotions about this?? Does he feel like he is getting away with something?

12. An unnamed prostitute speaks out about being with Tim, and tells us an interesting story. She says that Tim gave her his cell phone number and told her to call if she needed a ride anywhere, that he would give her a ride, she says, in exchange for sexual favors.
    
    

    Woman: He picked me up on numerous occasions, at least 10 to 15 times. He gave me his cell phone number to have me call him if I needed a ride, if I didn’t have money instead of exchanging money me paying for the ride, we exchanged sexual favors.

    My husband actually made an amazing statement when we watched this. He said what if on the way home from the bar, Allison realized in her drunken state that she didn’t have money left, that she had spent it all? What if Tim was her cab driver? How would Tim think? According to this unknown prostitute above, Tim would think “sexual favors”. If it was Tim, could he have demanded sexual favors from Allison that night, and she refused? Could that be how this whole thing happened?

13. Police check out Tim’s alibi, Susan, and find out that he didn’t clock out from driving the cab until after midnight. Susan’s response is not surprising. Susan’s facial features remind me of people who suffer from alcoholism. I wonder if she is known to drink, and drink in excess?
    
    

    Susan Iannone: I mean, the only reason I would’ve said 7 o’clock was because it was a Sunday, and it may not have been a Sunday. We don’t…I don’t remember.

    Dateline: So you think maybe you were mistaken?

    Susan Iannone: I mean, sure, I could be. That was 2006!

    This fits with Susan’s personality a whole lot better than her first answer, doesn’t it?

14. In November 2008, police cleared Iannone. The cold case squad talked about how important the DNA evidence is, and I couldn’t disagree. They also talked about how Tim shook his head yes when he said no. These are very strong indicators that Tim is not being honest with us. Yet the police also said that Tim volunteered to come in and speak to them, which is highly unusual for a guilty person to do.

Tim is certainly an interesting character, and I must say I am torn about what to think of him. I do believe he is a cold, callous man without much regard for other people. He has no problem lying to the woman he has been married to for over 20 years. Worse, several prostitutes are alleging that he abused them. I think that makes Tim a dangerous man, and someone we should be concerned with. And most importantly, he seems to perfectly fit the profile of someone who could do this crime.

However, some “bad boys”, like Tim, often gloat in the darkness, and even if they didn’t commit a crime, and it is rumored they did, they enjoy the fact that they are intimidating people, scaring people, and have an edge over them. People like this love the power play that a bad reputation gives them, even if it is false, and they enjoy playing the part.

Could that be what Tim is doing here? He realized long ago, no one could read him, and so the question is, is he delighting in fooling people for another reason other than deception?

At this time, I am unable to determine the cause of Tim’s delight. It could be true duper’s delight, or enjoyment of being thought of as a “killer” when he, in fact, is not.

I went back and looked at the nod that the cold case squad point out in the interview when Tim denied he is a murderer, and killing the two women (Part 5, time marker 1:50). I didn’t notice it as anything unusual when I first saw it, and I wondered why. And when I watched it a second time after it was pointed out, I wasn’t sure this was deceptive body language. I wanted to know why. Then I realized I should compare his “yes” responses, where we know he is being true, to this. Were they the same?

If you rewind the clip back a few minutes, to where Tim answers Mankiewicz’s questions about submitting his DNA, and passing a polygraph, which we know for sure are true, his nod to these questions is very different than the nod when he says “no” in reply to the questions about killing the women.

When we know Tim is honest, and he says yes, his head goes from the up position to the down position, and there is a slight shaking movement. Yet when he responded that he did not kill the woman, his head went from down to the up position. I would think, just intuitively, that when Tim says yes and believes it, his body language would be the same as when he lies and his head involunarily moves in the yes motion. The fact that the two nods are different, makes me question if they mean the same thing. I wondered if I picked up on this innately, and that is why I didn’t register these nods the first time?

When Tim was asked what his reaction was to being cleared, he looks totally deflated. He says, “I think that’s good, but I expected it to be followed by the annoucement arresting someone for this.” Why did this deflate him? Did it mean his “bad boy” game was over? Is that why he went on Dateline, again, to potentially renew the gig? If this was a game of duper’s delight, wouldn’t Tim still be just as happy as he always was, pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes?

I wonder, did police use his cell phone pings from that night on the job to see if he was in the area? No one ever mentioned that. Wouldn’t his cell phone also have logged in all calls received and made? If there were no calls from the pub, and all calls received at the hours around when Allison disappeared did not link back to anyone known to have been at the pub that night, wouldn’t that help support that Tim wasn’t likely the cab driver?

Intuitively, I am leaning slightly on this case in one direction, but when my logic kicks in, it fights with my intuition and tells me, wait, be cautious, don’t decide [so officially, I am undecided at this time]. I’d really like to see the “confidant” and “husband” speak. That might give me my answers!