Hello podcast listeners… On October 28, 1999, just before 9 pm, multiple shots rang out in the parking lot of Pleasant Valley Methodist Church as choir practice was letting out for the night. Members of the choir would run to the car of one of their fellow church members to find her fatally wounded, lying in a pool of blood next to her jeep and a light-colored car speeding away. This is a story of love, betrayal, corruption, and murder. I’m Amanda, and you’re listening to New York’s Dark Side. 

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Welcome to November! I feel like this year is just flying by, it’s crazy. I’m not ready. Today also happens to be my husband’s birthday so everyone wish a happy birthday to my love Jared! It’s also national donut day on the day this releases and that sounds amazing so I’m going to have to get me some donuts! 

This week I’ve got a true crime story for you. This is a case out of Poughkeepsie, New York area. I came across this one by chance, I was looking into something else while researching for the episode I released last week and somehow ended up with an article related to this case in the mix. I’m not sure how that happened but I’m glad it worked out because it’s perfect for the vibe that I am going with for episodes in November because there’s an element of dirty politicians that plays into this case as well. Just one more thing before I get started, I do want to give a brief trigger warning that there is also some discussion of suicide and attempted suicide in this case. I know I personally struggle with that topic. I’ll give another warning when we get to that part of the case so that anyone who wants to can skip ahead but if you decide this episode is not for you, that’s totally okay too I hope you’ll join me next week for the upcoming episodes. 

Today we’re discussing the case of Susan Fassett. I heard about this case quite a while ago on a Forensic Files episode, but I found out so much more than what was covered in that episode when I dove into the research for this case. Let’s jump right into it. Susan Elizabeth Tabor was born in Pawling, New York on February 26, 1951. I had never heard of Pawling, so I looked it up, it’s a village in Duchess County about a half hour from the Connecticut border, which I thought was interesting, it’s also not too far from Bedford, NY which we just talked about last episode. I like the picture of their sign on the Pawling village website, it has a quote that says, “Where History Lives On As the Future Unfolds”. I’m a nerd, so that just resonated with me… anyway… Susan was born to William and Helen Taber and grew up on a farm. She was close with her father growing up and dreamed of being a teacher like her mother. However, growing up in 60’s and 70’s she knew that it was not a good time to be a teacher, there were far more teachers than there were jobs, the odds might not be in her favor so instead, she found a desk job and ended up moving to Poughkeepsie, New York. Oh twisted fate… it makes me sad to think about how one decision impacts your life so heavily.

One day in the mid 1970’s, she met a man named Jef in a bar, and they fell in love and would get married. Jef worked as a police officer in Poughkeepsie and was a bit of an opposite in personality to Susan. Where Susan was very personable, social, and liked to get out and travel, Jef was more introverted and a homebody. The couple would have two sons, Jason and Christopher, and Susan worked her way up to being a Personnel Coordinator for the town of Poughkeepsie. She was also very involved in the church and was part of the church choir.

I wish I could say that things were perfect in the home, but then I wouldn’t be telling you about this case. Susan despite being social and more extroverted, also was one to not really share her feelings and concerns. She felt like she didn’t want to burden anyone, so she just kept them to herself. When Susan and the boys would go do things, like go to the city to see a ball game or go out on other trips and errands, Jef preferred to stay home alone which likely bothered Susan. She didn’t talk about these concerns with Jef and Jef would say later that he likely didn’t help matters because his behavior could seem like he was emotionally unavailable to Susan and the boys. There is one person who likely picked up on this and unfortunately took advantage of the situation to insert himself into Susan’s life. Susan would end up starting an affair with a man that she met at work, Fred Andros… and this would prove to be her undoing. Fred Andros was said to be… basically an asshole… he was arrogant, a womanizer, manipulative, controlling, and condescending. He was also described by the Town Hall employees as not being able to speak with women without making disgusting sexual comments or trying to make a pass at them, like just gross behavior. He would even go so far to have city workers come do work on his house during their paid time, so he was using taxpayer dollars to benefit himself to get shit done at his house. He also had illegally hooked his house up to water, so he was showering his dirty ass in free water. He was a short man, standing about 5 foot seven and wore heeled cowboy boots to give him a little more height, along with that he wore outdated western shirts and jeans, and kept his hair slicked back. Fred Andros grew up in Poughkeepsie and had gotten into trouble during his teens for petty crimes like burglary. He dreamed of making it big as a “mafia-type” badass and from the sounds of it he was trying very, very hard to put on this persona. People at Town Hall had a saying, “you don’t say know to Freddy. You just don’t.” Fred was married; he was on his fourth wife, Diane, when he met Susan. He had multiple children with different partners... Besides the multiple failed marriages, Fred basically kept two mistresses at any given time, had multiple one-night stands, and he very frequently picked up women who engaged in sex work. One source said he spent hundreds of dollars on sex workers a day. He gives me the “having more is just not enough” vibe… I don’t if that makes sense really, I mean… he’s got a wife, multiple girlfriends, with more sidepieces and he’s also picking up sex workers… and even that’s still not enough for him… just ew. Ew Fred. 

Susan and Fred would continue their affair for about three years before Jef became aware of it. Jef had gotten the feeling the summer of 1999 that something was going on with Susan. From the source material, it seemed like people at town hall were aware that Susan and Fred had something going on for quite a while. Jef worked a town over and was said to be the last to know about the affair. Jef would up installing a recording device on the home telephone, and he would end up recording a phone conversation with between Susan and Fred that would let him know the truth of what was going on. And he would confront Susan with this information. This confrontation would take place a few days before their 24thwedding anniversary. Obviously, this was a very difficult time for Susan and Jef, their marriage was already struggling and this about broke it completely. Jef would have Susan move into the in-law apartment of their home, so they were sleeping in separate areas… However, even though they had already sat their son’s down and told them that things were over, Susan wasn’t quite ready for the marriage to end. After a few weeks of living in the home in very tense circumstances, one night she climbed into bed with Jef, told him that she would end the affair, and that she wanted to work things out, and Jef agreed. She handed over the cell phone and pager that Fred had given her to contact him with and they both took some time off work. They even ended up purchasing new wedding bands as a fresh start, and they spent the week before her murder working on different projects around the house and spending time together working on repairing their broken relationship. 

October 28, 1999 was like any other day. Susan had to work that day, so she went to Town Hall and was doing her thing. Jef went to the jewelry store and picked up his new wedding band, and he stopped by Town Hall to see Susan and show her the ring and talk a few minutes. Later that day Susan would come home, have dinner with the family, and then she went to the church for choir practice. There was one odd occurrence during dinner- Jef was convinced that he saw a shadowy figure out in the lawn looking through the windows. Susan told him it wasn’t there, but he was sure. He got up, he went outside, and there was someone there hurrying down the street in a black hoody to a light colored sedan. They kind of shrugged it off thinking maybe someone was just lost. Susan would leave to go to choir practice. Jef stayed home watching television with their two teenage sons, but around 7:30 pm he would tell them that he was going to stop by the police station to pick up his paycheck.  Choir practice that night ended between 8:30 and 8:45 PM. Susan said goodbye to her fellow church members, walked across the street to where she had parked her car and got in. As she was getting settled in the car… The first of a total of six shots would ring out. Some of her fellow church members were still around and at first, they thought the shots were someone letting off firecrackers, but then they saw a light-colored sedan speeding away and Susan was on the ground outside her Jeep in a pool of blood. They would call emergency services but unfortunately Susan had been fatally wounded. 

Jef had returned home and resumed watching television with his sons. The police immediately suspected that Jef had something to do with his wife’s fatal shooting. And this was seemingly confirmed when they were told that his car had been seen in the area. So, they went to the Fassett’s house… and surrounded it with all their lights on and apparently didn’t approach the door or try to contact Jef by phone, they just surrounded the house and sat there. Jef saw that the police were out there and was confused, so being a police officer, he called to headquarters and asked what was going on which I think is reasonable... if there’s something going on in a neighboring house where you should be sheltering in place, it’s probably best to do so. He would say when he called that no one gave him a clear answer, they didn’t tell him anything had happened with Susan… nothing. Looking back out the window though, he could see officers surrounding his house with guns drawn so now he’s starting to get concerned. His sons are in the house, and it looks like his department has turned on him and are surrounding his house with guns drawn. I don’t know what I would do in this situation… at all… Jason Fassett, one of the son’s, was also trying to call around to find out was going on. He called the church, and spoke with someone, and this is when they find out that Susan has been shot. Which is just… horrific… he tells Jef and Jef’s next steps are to turn out the lights and continue to wait things out. Police, however, were surrounding the house with the belief that he had killed Susan, which Jef is probably now realized that this is probably what is going on… and police took this as though Jef was barricading himself in. Which… doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me… because he called and asked what was going on and if he was barricading himself in why would he do that? Like I get guilty people try to play innocent or whatever, but if they truly told him nothing as to what was going on... I don’t know… Ultimately what happened was there was some poor communication and the license plate that had been given as Jef’s car, was Susan’s Jeep’s license plate number which was at the scene because she had driven to the choir practice. After about two hours with nothing changing, Jef decided that he and his sons were going to go out of the house and confront the situation head on. So, they exited their house with their hands up and they were immediately thrown to the ground and handcuffed… Jef, Jason and Christopher. I’m not sure why they felt the need to put the boys on the ground and handcuff them, but they did. 

Jef is questioned… of course. Unfortunately, he doesn’t really have an alibi because he had left the house for a period to pick up his paycheck. Jef was super cooperative, he took and passed a polygraph. He told them that he would do whatever they needed, answer whatever they needed, but when they were done looking at him they needed to look at Fred Andros. The night of the murder, Fred Andros was home. He was having dinner with his wife, as well the birds, a couple that Fred was friends with through the local model airplane group. Mr. Bird just so happened to also be a former police officer. Fred appeared to have a solid alibi. But things might not be exactly as they appeared. Fred Andros had been in quite a lot of trouble recently. I mentioned earlier that Fred and Susan had met at Town Hall because they had worked there. That’s where Fred’s trouble comes into play because Fred did the town dirty. He was working as the Town’s Superintendent of the Water Board. He, along with a couple of other high-ranking people in the town, had been investigated by the FBI in a case of corruption. In fact, Fred had to resign from him position back in May of 1999, because he had pled guilty to one count of conspiracy helped extort over $100,000 from people and businesses by taking cash bribes for water permits or refusing to give people water permits unless they paid him for them. The two other names I saw involved in this scheme were William Paroli Sr and Basil “Bill” Raucci. Paroli was a retired police detective who in the 1970’s became active in politics and would work his way up to becoming the chairman of the Duchess County Republican Party and worked as the Republican party elections commissioner. He was said to have been the one spearheading this corruption, taking the money from bribes from the contractors to enrich himself, other members involved, and for the Republican Party. Bill Raucci was the former Town of Poughkeepsie tax assessor, and in 1997 after being confronted by the FBI investigating this case was found deceased in the Hudson River. This was labeled as a suicide, but many people were concerned that this was more likely foul play involved. In fact, investigators would later say that Fred probably was the one to start that rumor to help inflate his status as a “badass”. It doesn’t look like anything further ever came from those concerns, but I don’t think the FBI knew what they were getting into when they started investigating the corruption concerns… which we’ll get to in a little bit. 

When Susan’s body was taken for autopsy, they would find that she had been struck by five bullets. They would also find evidence that she had sexual relations with someone within the last 48 hours. When they discussed this with Jef, he was shocked to hear it, telling investigators that they hadn’t had intercourse in the last couple of days. He would submit a DNA sample which would show to not be a match. Knowing that Susan had the previous affair with Fred Andros, even though she was supposed to end it, investigators would talk with Fred. Fred would tell them, the affair was over and had been for a year and a half, which was a lie. He would also try to say that even if it hadn’t been he was impotent and not able to have intercourse, that Susan and his affair hadn’t been sexual, but they’d done a lot of smooching… and he would also refuse to give a DNA sample when asked. Investigators were obviously not going to take his word for that, word around town was Fred was a real womanizer and he was continuing to pick up women in the sex trade. Some of those women would be questioned and would tell investigators that he wasn’t impotent, he was just a liar. They didn’t have enough evidence at this point to get a warrant for his DNA though because he had that airtight alibi. Investigators would have to get a little crafty to get some additional evidence to move this case forward. They decided to try to set a trap. One of the investigators on the case would reach out to Fred Andros, telling him that he needed to speak with him again and invited him to lunch. They sat in the car and spoke, but Fred initially didn’t eat anything of the lunch he had ordered. He likely was suspicious of what was going on since they had already asked him for a sample of DNA which he had refused. The investigator just kept talking to him and slowly kept turning the heat on higher and higher until Fred finally broke and took a drink out of the soda that had been purchased for him and he left the cup in car when he left. So, they got his DNA. 

Fred would be questioned again and he had all kinds of stories for investigators this time. He first of course accused Jef of killing Susan for being the jealous husband but that had already been ruled out. He tried to pin Susan’s murder on Paroli, the head of the republican committee because Fred had actually accepted a plea deal and was one of the key witnesses against Paroli. Investigators didn’t buy that one. He even tried to pin the murder on his wife Diane who had been with him at the dinner that night with the Birds, stating that she might have slipped out of the house while Fred and Mr. Bird were out in the garage working on model airplanes. Again, investigators didn’t really buy this story. So finally, trapped in a corner, Fred pulled out what he thought would be his ace in the hole. He told investigators that “maybe Susan was killed by a lesbian lover”. And this is where Dawn Silvernail officially enters the picture. 

Dawn Silvernail was Fred Andro’s other mistress; they had actually been in a relationship for about twenty years at this point. Dawn and Fred had met over CB radio- she had the handle DeltaDawn and Fred had the handle Neptune. They became friends chatting over CB radio for a while before finally meeting in a dive bar. Dawn would moonlight in local bars and nightclubs as a country/western singer and by day she worked with individuals with developmental disabilities. Many of her co-workers described her as an angel. She had grown up fishing, hunting, and doing the like. Dawn was married to her second husband when she started the affair with Fred, and things were not going great. Fred clearly had a knack for picking up on this sort of thing and taking advantage of it to insert himself into the situation. Dawn was said to be a very open-minded lover, and she let him do things that his wife wasn’t into, like play with sex toys and the like. She would later say that she really wasn’t into sex in general, but she let men do what they wanted with her which is just sad. I’m not going to go down that whole rabbit hole but anything between partners should be consensual and focused on making sure all parties are having a pleasurable experience. That’s all I am going to say on the matter. Throughout the years, Fred would lend Dawn money… quite a substantial amount of money overall, amounting to over $15,000. But nothing in life is free and Dawn would find that out the hard way. Fred began to call in those favors in many different ways. He would traffic her to his friends, and force to have sexual relations with them. He would use her as a mule, having her deliver mysterious envelopes and packages around town which was probably extorted money from the contractors that they were fucking over. He would even pay her to have a few three ways with Susan, claiming that Susan wanted to experiment in that way, but Dawn could tell during the first of these encounters that Susan was clearly uncomfortable and needed to be coaxed by Fred to participate. Dawn was paid $350 for the first encounter and would be paid a total of about $1200 for the five to six encounters that were had. The last encounter took place in one of the water pump stations, on a blanket, and Fred had the nerve to video record the tryst which investigators would find when they searched his house. He was just a gross ass man. I’m pretty sure they knew he was recording, technology wasn’t it is now, so I hope they knew… but even so, he probably didn’t have good intentions for what he planned to do with that tape. As gross as he was, he was at least good at controlling everyone and coming up with ways to black mail people to get what he wanted. He would tell investigators that Dawn had fired six shots with her .45 caliber pistol. These were not details those police had released to the public, so they knew they had something. 

When police came to question her the first time, Dawn was very cooperative and told them she didn’t know Susan. They told her that they were questioning and searching all homes with registered 45 caliber weapons, which she admitted that she had, and she did hand it over to them. When the forensics lab examined the gun, they would find that it had been purposely tampered with, which was concerning. They ended up questioning some neighbors who would tell them that Dawn and her husband would frequently shoot their guns out in their back yard at trees to target practice, so investigators would go to the back yard and search, eventually finding some bullets that would ultimately match the ones pulled from Susan at autopsy. When police would question Dawn again, she would end up confessing. The story she told was that she and Fred had been together a long time and that he had come to her concerned that when Susan ended things with their affair, he was concerned that she was going to turn on him to investigators looking into the corruption case. He was afraid that she had dirt on him, and she needed to go, so he asked if she knew anyone who could “take care of Susan”. She told him that she didn’t, so then he told her that she would need to do it and if she did, he would absolve all her past debt to him. She was not into the plan at all. One day he called her over to his home when his wife Diane was away and when Dawn got there, she noticed that there were a bunch of pictures laid out on his dining room table. When she looked closer at them, she saw they were surveillance photos of her family, there were a few of her son at the loading dock of the factory where he was employed just smoking a cigarette taking a break not knowing he was being surveilled. Fred would tell Susan that she needed take care of Susan before someone “took care of her problems” indicating her son. He told her it would be a shame if someone took him out in a drive by. This is what convinced Dawn to agree because she was afraid of Fred, she’d heard the rumors that he had helped take out Raucci so she was afraid for her family. 

Dawn was arrested, but the investigators weren’t done yet. They knew that they needed to also get Fred, and this was where the challenge was. He had that airtight alibi. Dawn was willing to testify against Fred, which was good but that wasn’t enough.  New York has a law that prevents a conviction of an individual based solely on the testimony of a co-conspirator, which is a complete opposite of the situation in Arizona with the Don Bolles homicide, if you haven’t listened to those episodes check them out because that’s a messed up dirty situation. Thank you, New York, for doing something right, because I can’t imagine being convicted on a confession of someone who’s known to be a damn dirty liar *cough Harvey Adamson cough*. The lead investigator Tom Martin would end up coming up with a plan. He had all the data from the phones and pagers of Susan, Fred, and Dawn. Dawn told investigators that she had never been in contact with Susan, the only time they had spent together had been set up by Fred Andros. So, this might be the evidence they needed to implicate him in the murder, they just had to prove it. The issue was they had thousands and thousands of phone, email, pager, and cell communications between the three that needed to be sorted to try to gain a clear answer as to what was going on. Tom Martin went to the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center-Northeast. They had a Law Enforcement Analysis Facility (LEAF) that was able to help analyze the information. They used a technology called Web Enabled Timeline Analysis System, or WebTAS, that build a timeline of events showing who contacted who and from where on a map. This showed conclusively that Dawn had no contact with Susan, but Fred had been in contact with both women multiple times a day leading up to the murder. 

Dawn and Fred had been in communication multiple times leading up to the murder, to plan everything out. The week prior to Susan’s murder, Dawn had followed Susan to a jazzercise class but backed out of the slaying because she was concerned that there would be too many witnesses. On October 28th, 1999, Dawn and Fred met in a Dunkin Donuts parking lot where he gave her fake license plates. Dawn had been the shadowy figure that Jef had noticed that evening while the family was having dinner. Later that evening she parked next to Susan’s car while Susan was at choir practice, pulled her seat all the way back and hunkered down in her car waiting for Susan to come back out. Susan got into her car just before 9 pm and as Dawn watched her shut the door and reach for her seat belt to buckle herself in, Dawn raised the gun and fired the first two shots. Susan tried to get out of her car to get away and Dawn would empty out the rest of the revolver then speed away. 

The day after Dawn confessed investigators would go to collect Fred Andros. They approached his house and knocked on the door. Fred’s teenage son would let them in, telling them that Fred was around the house somewhere, so they split up to search. This is where I’m going to give that other trigger warning that I mentioned earlier so this is your cue to skip ahead. I’ll give you a second to do so. One of the investigators approached the attic and noted the door was cracked open. He called out to Fred, telling him he was coming in, and as he did so he heard a single gunshot. Rushing in he found Fred Andros on the floor of the attic with a handgun beside him, but Fred was still alive. He had attempted to end his life by placing the muzzle of the gun under his chin, but the bullet deflected off his nasal bones and came out his forehead. He would spend a month at Westchester Medical Center and be left with permanent scarring, but he would live to face trial. 

On January 6, 2000, a grand jury would indict both Fred Andros and Dawn Silvernail for the murder of Susan Fassett. Fred was sent to Duchess County Jail to await trial; Susan had been at Duchess County until Fred arrived there from the hospital but was moved to Putnam County Jail to ensure they had no contact. On February 17, 2000, Fred Andros would enter a plea of not guilty. Dawn pled guilty to one count of second-degree murder on March 27 and agreed to testify against Fred in exchange for leniency. On April 26th, prosecutors would announce the new charge of second-degree conspiracy against Fred Andros. On June 23, he was sentenced by a federal court judge to 33 months for his role in the town corruption case. The charge of second-degree murder against Fred Andros really fucked with the federal investigators since he was supposed to be their lead witness against Paroli Sr, however he was now not a favorable witness in that case with these additional charges against him. His murder trial would start in January of 2001, and he was found guilty. He would ultimately be sentenced to 25 years to life in prison which was to run consecutively with his conspiracy charges. He was sent to Clinton Correctional Facility and died two years later on November 28, 2002 of an apparent heart attack. Dawn Silvernail was sentenced to 18 years to life for her role in the murder of Susan Fassett. She was denied parole and would also die in prison in April of 2020. She would give multiple interviews after the conviction appearing remorseful for her role in ending the life of a wife and mother, but there are some anonymous sources close to her that would say that there was always something about Dawn that made them think that maybe she was exhilarated at the thought of potentially ending someone’s life that made her agree to it. It does make me wonder a bit… if Fred Andros could threaten to have someone take out her son, why was he using that as the reason to get her to agree to take out Susan… 

And that my friends was the tragic tale of a love triangle filled with betrayal, corruption, manipulation, and just one giant asshole behind it all. I need a shower after this one. Head on over to our social pages where we can continue the conversation, let me know what you think of this case. Make sure you are following the show on your podcast platform of choice to be the first to know when new episodes drop. I just want to give you all a quick shout out, it’s been amazing to see the show continue to grow. I’m working on some great new content to bring you so please continue to share with your friends, coworkers, gym buddies, the weird cousins that you only see around the holidays. I’m working on adding some fun new options to the Patreon which I am hoping to launch soon, so keep an eye out for announcements around that. All the sources for this show are linked in the show notes and on our webpage. I think that wraps up all the business! I hope everyone has a wonderful week ahead and most of all I hope you stay curious!