02/11/00 Matthew Margolies: Mother Recounts Son's Life

By Peter Moore -- Greenwich Post

Since a site dedicated to Matthew Margolies went up on the Internet, the response has been a blessing for his mother Maryann. But by adding her own personal touch, she says she was able to let web surfers know that Matthew was something far more than a 13-year-old victim of a senseless crime. He was a person.

Maryann recently arranged for a story she wrote, "A Legacy of Love," accompanied by photographs of Matthew, to be posted at www.matthewmargolies.com. Five web pages long, the story tells of a life short in length, but full of spirit.

Maryann's story is one of the latest additions to a website created and maintained by Tom Alessi, a Stamford 911 facilities manager, who maintains two sites dedicated to unsolved murders that have taken place in Greenwich. Alessi's other site profiles the case of his childhood friend Martha Moxley, a Greenwich teen who was bludgeoned to death with a golf club in 1975.

"I asked Tom Alessi to post [the story] on the Internet because I wanted my son to have an identity," Maryann said Monday. "I think that except for the people who have known him, [Matthew] probably had been looked upon as a victim without an identity. And there's been such a response on the Internet that I wanted people to get a feeling of who he really was as a human being, as a person."

The person Maryann described lived from Jan. 24, 1971 until Aug. 31, 1984. And though Matthew's murder by an unknown assailant in the Pemberwick section of Greenwich has generated far more media attention than the happenings of his life, "A Legacy of Love," does not discuss the time surrounding his death at length.

Instead, Maryann Margolies talks of her son's love of nature and uses his example to touch the net surfer's heart and remind him or her of ways to achieve inner happiness.

"Given a choice, he would always prefer to be outdoors," she writes of Matthew. "The warmth of the sun, the wetness of the rain and the coldness of the snow would all nourish his spirit. He found joy in all of it. How long has it been since you last listened to the soft music made by fresh falling snow or perhaps the deeper sounds of rain?"

She describes Matthew as a decent student, specifically mentioning books he wrote at school with titles such as "Tombstone Ghost," "Fishing" and "Merry Christmas." These books still lie on the shelves of Maryann Margolies' house where she resides with her husband Jim.

At the time of his death, Matthew was due to begin eighth grade at Western Middle School. He disappeared on Aug. 31, 1984 and his body was found five days later in a wooded hilly area near Hawthorne and Greenway Street. He had been stabbed with a boning knife and asphyxiated and his body had been left in a shallow grave. There has never been an arrest in the killing.

"I've always had hope in that at some point, whoever was responsible for my son's death would be identified and that justice would be served," Maryann Margolies said Monday.

When Martha Moxley's neighbor Michael Skakel was arrested on Jan. 19 for Martha's murder, Maryann said the arrest did not influence her hope of an eventual arrest in her son's case. But she did say that the arrest proved that there is no way of time completely standing in the way of justice.

"I think that what has happened within Martha's case supports the fact that it's never too late," she says.

In her story, Maryann also writes of the joy Matthew received at the times of holidays, particularly Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter and Halloween. A picture of Matthew in a Halloween costume accompanies the story.

She also mentions Matthew's fondness for hats on a page which includes a photo of Matthew atop a fire engine, wearing the traditional red firefighter's hat. Matthew's love of sports, especially fishing is also brought to light.

"He was quite the sportsman and many a man learned from him," she says.

She also mentions remembering Matthew with a positive outlook.

"Not a day passes, that I do not think of Matthew," she writes. "It seems clear that his life ended as it began, with a struggle. However, it is his life that I have had to focus upon. I can see his smile and hear his laughter. I know his love, warmth and caring ways. God has shown his love and bestowed his blessing in choosing me to be Matthew's mother."

Matthew's mother concludes "A Legacy of Love," by urging busy grownups to take time for their little ones. She explained the passage Monday.

"I think that it would be part of a living memorial to Matthew in order for people to take the time to tell their child that they love them," she said. "With both parents working and all the changes, people are always rushing around. It's important for parents to take the time, tell their children how they feel and above all, take the time to listen to them."

The story's final paragraph reads, in part: "If you have read this, please take the time to tell a child how much you love him/her. Chase rainbows, and if you can't find one, then make it! (Ingredients: a little sun, a garden hose and some running water) The reward: FUN, LAUGHTER AND LOADS OF LOVE IN BEING TOGETHER!"

12/03/99 Moxley and Margolies web site manager keeps hope alive

By Peter Moore - Greenwich Post

Tom Alessi recalls his old Western Junior High and Greenwich High School classmate Martha Moxley as a "very nice person."

"Never had a,.bad thing to say about anybody," Alessi said. "Everybody liked her. She was very bright and intelligent." For some time now, Alessi,a resident of Stamford, has maintained and updated www.MarthaMoxley.com an informational website on the 24-year-old unsolved murder case. The site serves as a resource center for anybody wishing to learn about the case and its latest happenings as well as a forum for those wishing to air their views or even to E-mail tips about the killing.

As the Moxley site gained fans, Alessi, a facilities manager at the Stamford 911 center, began to receive correspondence from acquaintances about a different matter which had gained far less media attention.

"Several people that I knew from Greenwich, when they found out I was doing the Martha Moxley case website said, 'There's another [murder] that could use some attention too."'

On Aug. 31, 1984, 13-year-old Matthew Margolies, a resident of the Pemberwick section of Greenwich, left his grandmother's house to go fishing. He was last seen walking along the Byram River that afternoon. When he did not return home in the evening, his mother Maryann called police, but it was not until five days later before his body was finally discovered in a wooded hilly area near Hawthorne and Greenway Street.

Matthew had been stabbed several times and an autopsy revealed that his torso had been compressed to the point where breathing was impossible. The knife reportedly used to kill Matthew was found nearby several days later, but was never traced to a suspect. The Greenwich Police Department had not dealt with a homicide since the 1975 Moxley killing and as in the Moxley case, they never arrested a suspect.

Recently, Alessi became acquainted with Kevin McMurray, a reporter who had interviewed Maryann Margolies. McMurray and Alessi then struck a deal for a new site,

www.MatthewMargolies.com.

"I told [McMurray] that if he wrote the first page of the site that I would go over it and publish it," Alessi said.

The "first page" of the website actually prints out to more than seven pages on paper. McMurray's account and interviews detail how, as in the Moxley the early stages of the investigation.

In an excerpt from his book, "Murder in Greenwich; Who Killed Martha Moxley?" former Los Angeles Police detective Mark Fuhrman writes that several mistakes were noted in the Margolies report, including no detective being delegated to check the initial missing person report, only one detective viewing the crime scene, a lack of clear explanations to various officers of their assignments on the case, and the department's release of "sensitive information" to the media.

Links are also provided on the site to recent news updates on the case and excerpts on the Margolies killing from both Fuhrman's Moxley account and Tim Dumas's "A Wealth of Evil" (formerly "Greentown"), another book on the Moxley murder.

For Alessi, whose says his website programming skills are self taught, maintaining the Margolies site represents another opportunity to shed light on a case sadly still unsolved.

"The most positive thing that I've found is that people have been interested in keeping the cage going and by letting it slip by the wayside," he said. As of noon on Tuesday, the two-month old Margolies site was approaching 1900 hits.

Alessi first became involved with the Moxley site two years ago after meeting Robert Steiner ' an Austrian college student, on CyberSleuths.com, an independent news service which maintains chronicled accounts of crimes. Steiner had created several small web pages containing synopsis of different murders. One eventually became what is today his complete Moxley site.

"I expressed a desire to [Steiner] to take it over and create www.MarthaMoxley.com, since I was closer to the news and was able to devote more time to it," Alessi said.

Alessi said that his maintenance of the two websites is not driven by a need to be noticed, but by a desire to help keep the Moxley and Margolies cases alive in hopes that one day their killers will be found.

"I don't really care for publicity," he said Monday. "The story is not me, the story is the murders."

Maryann Margolies, Matthew's mother is said to be pleased with the website dedicated to solving her son's case.

"She's contacted Kevin, told him she's impressed and mentioned that she wanted to get in touch with me," Alessi said. Attempts to contact Maryann Margolies were unsuccessful.

Alessi and his wife of twelve years Moira are also parents themselves; of a seven-year old boy, also named Matthew. For Alessi, the sites serve as a reminder of how precious the life of his own child really is.

"There's not a day that goes by that you don't think it can happen to your own kid," he said. "That's the scary part. If it happens, you don't want people to forget. [Martha and Matthew] are gone, but hopefully not forgotten."

11/28/99 New Web site revisits unsolved '84 murder

By Thomas Mellana - Greenwich Time

"The Greenwich curse has manifested itself again. But unlike Martha Moxley, nobody talks about Matthew Margolies from Glenville anymore."

- From "Greentown" by Tim Dumas

Books have not been written about Matthew Margolies. For each newspaper story written about him, 10 appear about that other unsolved Greenwich murder.

But Matthew has found a place on the Web.

A Stamford Web site creator has established a new site about the unsolved 1984 killing of 13-year-old Margolies, whose body was discovered Sept. 5 of that year in the woods near his house, five days after he was reported missing.

"Some of the people from Greenwich who visited Martha's site brought up the fact there was this other unsolved murder in Greenwich," said Tom Alessi, who created the site about two months ago. "I did a little research, and decided this is something people needed to know."

Alessi, 39, a facilities manager at the Stamford 911 center, created a site about the unsolved 1975 murder of Martha Moxley two years ago. A Greenwich native, he was a childhood friend of Moxley, who lived in Belle Haven.

"I was originally from Chickahominy," he said. "I was a classmate of Martha's, and a good friend."

Alessi's strong interest in computers has led him to create Web sites for non-profit organizations in the community as a hobby. Creating one about Moxley seemed a natural.

His Margolies site, which can be reached by a link from the Moxley site, has caught on quickly with cybersleuths and the merely curious.

"In just two months, 1,600 people have looked at it - from all over the country," Alessi said.

Comments they leave on the site's bulletin board are not always flattering to the town or its police department.

"There is a lot of outrage, that two murders in the same town can go unsolved," Alessi said.

"Everyone is entitled to their opinion as to why these cases haven't been solved," Deputy Police Chief James Walters said. "But it doesn't result in anything positive to get into an argument about it. We're just continuing to try to move the investigation forward."

Margolies was an avid fisherman who frequently went fishing with his grandfather, who died shortly before Matthew disappeared. On Aug. 31, 1984, he left his grandmother's house, fishing pole in hand. nearly a week later, his body was discovered on a secluded hillside near his Glenville neighborhood. The murder weapon, a boning knife, was found near his body.

The Web site offers a lengthy synopsis of the murder and the investigation that followed, including photographs of Matthew and his family; a bulletin board on which visitors can record comments; excerpts mentioning the murder from books by Mark Fuhrman and Tim Dumas; and news updates.

"The purpose of this Web site (as well as the Martha Moxley Web site) is to keep the public informed of any developments in the case," Alessi wrote. "But most of all, it is meant to keep Matthew's memory alive for his family and friends."

The site creator's hope, of course, is that it also helps to solve the case.

"Tips would be appreciated," Alessi said. "I would certainly take them and forward them."

As of yet, that has not happened.

"We have not gained any additional information from the Martha Moxley site as of yet, or the Matthew Margolies site," Walters said. "However, as long as they're out there being talked about, we view it as a positive thing."

In May 1998, Police Chief Peter Robbins revealed plans to reinvestigate the Margolies case. Twenty suspects originally identified in the murder have been pared to five, some of whom still live in town.

Walters last week said he could not provide an update on the investigation. Greenwich Time has filed a claim with the state Freedom of Information Commission to see the Margolies investigation case file. The case is pending.

"We can't give out any additional information on that," Walters said.

The Margolies site can be found at matthewmargolies.com. The Moxley site is at marthamoxley.com.

Matthew's mother, Maryann Margolies, could not be reached for comment last week.