The Shadow of the Adirondacks: Robert Garrow and the Lawyers Who Kept His Deadly Secrets

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Today's story takes place in the summer of 1973, deep in the Anorondak mountains of New York.

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Four young campers went into the woods. Only three came back. The man responsible would

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spend years convincing doctors he couldn't walk, escape prison inside a bucket of fried

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chicken, and die in the brush with a hit list in his cell. And two lawyers sat on secrets

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that rewrote American law. This is the story of Robert Garrow.

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There's a summer the people of the Anorondak mountains have genuinely never gotten over,

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and most of the country never even knew that it was happening. It's 1973. Watergate is

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consuming everything. Nixon is sweating through press conferences while his entire administration

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unravels in real time. And most of America is watching it from their living rooms, but

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while that noise was filling every air wave, something much quieter and far more terrifying

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was building in the forests of upstate New York. Robert Garrow was born March 4th, 1936,

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in Danimora, New York. A tiny North Country Town that sits directly alongside the Clinton

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Correctional Facility, one of the most formidable prisons in the state. It's not lost on

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anyone that this is where the story begins, in the literal shadow of prison walls. His

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father was a chronic alcoholic who beat his children with whatever was nearby. Belts,

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bricks, it didn't matter. Police were regular visitors to the Garrow farm in Mindville. By

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the time Robert was 15, authorities removed him from the home and sent him to a prison

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farm to work. A prison farm, as an intervention. For 15-year-old boy, what it produced was

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a deeply isolated teenager with no therapeutic support, let alone with his own unraveling

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psychology in an institutional setting. He eventually joined the Air Force, that ended

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in a court-martial for stealing from a superior officer. Back in New York, he married a woman

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named Edith, had a son, found work as a mechanic in Syracuse. In 1961, he was convicted of

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first-degree rape of a 16-year-old girl and a salt of her boyfriend. Ten to twenty years

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per-old in 1968. Quick math, that's seven years. He got a job working at a baking company

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in Syracuse. Co-workers described him as hardworking and powerfully built, six foot two. But by the early

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1970s, whatever containment had existed was gone. In May 1973, he abducted and molested two young

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girls from a Syracuse ice cream stand and held two Syracuse university students who were hitchhiking

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against their will. Both students survived, but now he had court dates approaching, active

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parole, and nowhere good for any of this to go. On July 11, 1973, the day before he was

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due in court, Garrow disappeared. On that same day, 16-year-old Alicia Hawk vanished on her

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way home from school. She had been hitchhiking. Garrow picked her up, drove her to a secluded

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area near the Syracuse University cemetery, and when she tried to run, he killed her with

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a hunting knife and buried her body behind a maintenance shack at Oakwood Cemetery. Then

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he drove north toward the mountains, toward a wilderness he knew better than most people

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ever would. Three days later, 23-year-old Harvard student Daniel Porter and his 20-year-old

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girlfriend Susan Petz were camping near Weaver Town when Garrow found their campsite. He stabbed

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Porter to death. He took Petz captive. He held her for several days, assaulted her repeatedly,

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then killed her and dropped her body into a mineshaft in Mindville. The same town where

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he had grown up. Porter's body was recovered six days later. Susan Petz would remain missing

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for months. Her family not yet knowing she was already gone.

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On July 29th, Garrow came upon four young campers near Wells, south of Speculator. 18-year-old

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Philip Dumbluski was there with his friends Nick Fiorello, David Freeman, and Carol Ann

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Malanowski. Garrow tied all four to separate trees, close enough to hear each other but not

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to see each other. Told them he had killed before and he would do so again. Then he stabbed

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Philip while the other three listened. All three worked three of their bonds and ran.

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Garrow disappeared into the Anorondacks. His abandoned Volkswagen was found near the scene

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the next day. The license plate confirming the name law enforcement was now hunting across

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the entire region. What followed was the largest manhunt in New York State history. Hundreds

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of officers and state troopers pushed into the Anorondacks. Helicopters ran infrared sweeps

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at night. Campgrounds were evacuated, roads were blocked, and over loudspeakers mounted these

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helicopters, authorities broadcast a recording on a continuous loop. The voice of Garrow's wife

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Edith playing on repeat over 6 million acres of forest.

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"Honey, this is Edith. Won't you please come out? Leave your rifle in the woods."

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That's a very specific 1973 approach to a manhunt.

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The unorthodox Garrow stayed ahead of the search for 12 days, breaking into hunting camps for

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food and moving parallel to the roads to avoid checkpoints. In surrounding communities, the

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dread was something that locals described for decades as "never fully lifting." Residents

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kept guns loaded by their doors. The state issued a public advisory telling anyone planning

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on an Anorondack trip to cancel, and anyone already there to leave. The summer tourist season

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simply stopped. A priest from North Creek named Father Ashline had the misfortune of

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bearing a strong physical resemblance to Garrow, and was tackled and handcuffed by state troopers

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while just going about his daily life. A local man named Walt Cuniff was met with shotguns

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leveled over patrol car hoods because his vehicle resembled one connected to the case. Only

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a nearby officer who recognized him personally kept that from becoming something irreversible.

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Garrow was cornered on August 9 after police staking out of sister's home in Witherby followed

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his nephew through a thicket where Garrow was hiding. Conservation officer Hillary LeBlanc

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fired, striking Garrow in the foot, arm and back. He was taken alive. And here's where

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the story becomes something American law schools are still teaching 50 years later. Frank

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Armani, a Syracuse attorney who had done minor prior legal work for Garrow, was appointed

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as defense counsel for the Dumblowski murder. Armani brought in Francis Belge, a seasoned

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criminal defense attorney to help build an insanity defense. During confidential client

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meetings, Garrow confessed to the murders of Alicia Hawk and Susan Petz and provided

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hand-drawn maps of where the bodies were located. Armani and Belge went to these locations.

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They found Susan Petz in the mineville shaft. They found Alicia's remains in the Oakwood

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cemetery. They photographed what they found and then they told "Absolutely no one."

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For five months, they held that silence while the families of both girls begged publicly

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for any information at all. Armani was a father himself. His daughter attended the same

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high school as Alicia Hawk's sisters. He knew Alicia's father personally. He described

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the experience later as "playing God, holding the client's constitutional rights in one

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hand and the grief of a parent who simply wanted to know where his child was" in the other.

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The attorneys offered to reveal these locations in exchange for Garrow being committed to a psychiatric

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facility. The district attorney refused. Trial proceeded. The secret came out in court

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in June 1974 when Garrow testified about the other murders as a part of his insanity

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defense. And a question Belge posed during testimony made it plain that the defense team

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had known about the bodies for months. Both attorneys were publicly condemned. Their

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practices collapsed. Armani suffered a heart attack under sustained death threats.

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Belge was indicted for failing to report a death, though a judge ultimately dismissed

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the charges while acknowledging that Belge had honored his legal obligation at extraordinary

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personal cost. Garrow was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to 25 years

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to life. He was not finished. While incarcerated, he faked paralysis so convincingly over such

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a sustained period that medical staff transferred him to the medium security fish kill correctional

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facility, which housed elderly and disabled inmates, lower security, which was the point.

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On September 8, 1978, his son Robert Jr. smuggled a 32-calibre pistol inside of a bucket

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of fried chicken during a visit. Garrow rose from his wheelchair, scaled a 15-foot fence,

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and walked into the woods. When staff searched his cell, they found a hit list.

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Frank Armani's name was on it. Francis Belge's name was on it. The two men who had sacrificed

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their reputations and their health to uphold Robert Garrow's constitutional rights were

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the first people he planned to find and kill first. Armani responded by helping police

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build a psychological profile of Garrow's likely movements, suggesting he would stay near

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the woods surrounding the prison. Three days after the escape, on September 11, 1978,

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corrections officers spotted Garrow in a shallow depression he had scooped out by hand in the

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brush near the facility. When they moved in, he opened fire and wound it an officer. The

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response was overwhelming. Robert Garrow was 42 years old when he was shot and killed. A map

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recovered from his Volkswagen years earlier had 26 red dots on it. Four murders are officially

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attributed to him. The remaining dots have never been explained. The buried body's case is now

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standard curriculum in American law schools and directly influenced the ABA's model rule 1.6,

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which now gives attorneys limited circumstances under which they may break confidentiality to prevent death

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or serious bodily harm. Two attorneys did exactly with the law required of them and paid for it

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in ways the law never anticipated. And somewhere in the accounting of Robert Garrow's life,

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there are still dots on a map with no names attached to them.

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Thanks for listening to 10 Minute Murder, Bingeable True Crime Stories. I'm Joe,

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on the host, and here's an email, subject listener suggestions pile. Joe,

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how many case suggestions are sitting in your inbox right now? I always wonder how you sort

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through all of that and decide what actually makes it onto the show. There has to be a system.

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Alissa and Frederick Marelin. Alissa, you would think there's a system but there is not.

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It's definitely not a system. And it varies how long an email sits there before I read it.

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Like yesterday, I was literally responding to emails that were just coming in right in that moment.

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But then this one, Alissa, your email, I'm sure you know it's been sitting there for a few months.

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And it's nothing personal, like two of my old friends that I've known for a very, very long time

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sent me an email and it sat there for months without me even knowing that it was there until I

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responded to that one. I feel terrible about it, but it's just the way that it is when you get

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hundreds and hundreds of emails. You do the best that you can. I do 100% read every single email.

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Now I can't respond to all of them because that's all I would ever be doing is just responding to

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emails. But I do read them all. And in those cases that are suggested from those emails,

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I'll do a quick look and see if it's something that I think would make a good possible case.

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And then I'll put it into a list in my notes app on my phone. And then later on, I'll go back into

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that list and I'll do more vetting to see if there's actually information out there that would make

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a good podcast episode. Hey, if you're a brand new listener to this podcast, make sure you hit

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subscribe right now. Then you can go to 10minuteMurder.com and send me an email that I will read.

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I'll definitely read it. And you can also sign yourself up for the 10minute murder weekly newsletter

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read it five stars wherever that's possible. Share it with your friends and your family. And also

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check out my new podcast. I'm pretty excited about this new project, True Crime Blueprint.

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It's deeper dives into some of the cases that are the most interesting to me. I do deeper dives

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into those cases. There's no time constraint on that where this one is 10 minutes. This one is

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until I get tired of talking. So check that out wherever you listen to this podcast, True Crime Blueprint.

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Alright, that's going to do it. That's your episode for today. Thank you again for listening to 10 Minute

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Murder. See you next time.

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[Music]