Genesee County’s District Attorney Robert Noonan ushered me into his office and closed the door. I’d been summoned and wondered what he could possibly want with me. Could the request I’d made at the Batavia police department just an hour earlier warrant an audience with him? Did I raise suspicion requesting records about my mother’s murder? Authority figures always made me nervous, a condition of my childhood upbringing that prohibited me from asking questions, especially about anything to do with my mother or father.
After being ushered into his office, the man went to his side of the desk. He looked very official and as he sat, he unbuttoned his well-fitted grey suit. I inhaled slowly, letting breath out slowly through pursed lips, preparing myself for inevitable rejection.
“Hello. I’m Robert Noonan, the Genesee County’s District Attorney. Thank you for coming. When I received the call from our police department, I was surprised to hear someone inquiring about a case from so long ago. The officer said you were asking for records about a murder that happened here, what – twenty-five years ago? What interest do you have in the case? Who are you and why do you want with them?”
He couldn’t see my fists clenched in my lap, a spontaneous reaction because I was both nervous and determined. A part of me resented being asked why, mainly because I’ve had to answer that question many times over the years. “Why do you want to know?” was my grandmother’s response any time I inquired about our family history. Aside from curiosity about our unusual family makeup –for years I’d believed my grandmother was my mother and when I discovered the woman I called “Mom” was not, I naturally wondered where my “real” mom was. Since I learned that both my parents were dead and how they had died, I wanted to know what happened. Who wouldn’t? Yet it seems I’m the only one in the family interested in pursuing answers.
I took a deep calming breath and said, “I’m Lisa Gioia. It was my mother who was murdered in 1958 when I was just a baby. I’m researching my family history and know very little about what happened, only what I’ve managed to find in newspaper articles. I am hoping there are records that I can see”
I wanted to say I believed I had a right to them. Aren’t records such as this supposed to be made public? Yet I didn’t want to come off as pushy. At twenty-six, I’d had a lifetime of not standing up for myself. That was changing and I believed it was because I’d learned my mother died trying to leave my father.
Recently I’d found the strength to leave my unhappy six-year marriage, becoming a single mother at the age of twenty-six the same age my mother was when she was killed.
Although my estranged husband never hurt me physically, I experienced emotional abuse. During one of my attempts to leave the marriage, his threat, “If you aren’t careful, you’ll end up like your mother,” was enough to put fear in me that my children would grow up without a mother. Perhaps that is why I am so determined to know more about my mother and father and have taken to investigating without help from my family. Their determination to keep me in the dark was infuriating. I was hoping this meeting wouldn’t prove to be another brick wall.
He said, “I see. There are records and I recognize your last name, Gioia, as being the same as that of the victim. I also wanted to make sure there were no photographs in the files, which I wouldn’t want you to see. There weren’t any, but there are a considerable number of other documents.” He added, “If you follow me, I’ll take you to a room with some privacy.”
Relief swept over me as I stood. There were files. Answers awaited me, more answers than I’d garnered so far and while I was anxious to see them, I felt trepidation as well. What was I going to find? Would I finally come to understand what happened the night my mom was killed, leaving me, a year-old baby, and my three older brothers orphaned?
Over the last few years, I had uncovered the basics of the story; my father had killed our mother and days later committed suicide. Those were the facts presented in news articles I’d obtained from the local library. What I didn’t know was, why? What would have spurred my father to commit such an act? The little my mother’s family, with whom I’d grown up, would tell me, painted a picture in my mind of my father as a jealous, controlling man who was mentally ill and my mother a saint who suffered abuse from him.
It was the relationship developing with my father’s family, with whom I didn’t meet until my teens, that made my curiosity go into overdrive. They claimed my father was a loving, devoted man. While they never used the word “whore” to describe my mother, their insinuation that she was unfaithful contradicted everything I’d been led to believe. Perhaps I thought as I followed Mr. Noonan down the hall I was about to find out the truth.
We stepped into a room containing a large conference table surrounded by high-backed chairs. The bookcase-lined walls were a deep mahogany in color, the wood gleaming with an old-world feel. Leatherbound law journals with wide, weathered spines were encased behind glass and covered all four walls. I was in a room in an historic building, fitting for my purpose here. As he showed me to a seat, he placed a manila folder before me.
“My secretary will make you copies of any documents. Please take your time,” he said with a note of, was that compassion or pity in his voice?
“Thank you,” was all I managed to say. He left the room, closing the door behind him.
Looking out of the window before I opened the folder, I saw trees laden with the green leaves of summer blowing in the wind. This little town, equidistant between Buffalo and Rochester, New York, where I was born and lived for only that first year of my life, was the starting and ending point of my short-lived family. I thought about the people outside going about their day-to-day lives, people who, had my family circumstances been different, would have been my neighbors, friends, and future.
I opened the folder and began to read.
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