“We’ve got four buildings and she’s in a different building, employees spread all over.” Hemy Neuman was explaining the layout at GE Energy in Marietta.
“You were at work?” asked Sergeant Gary Cortellino.
Hemy nodded yes.
Cortellino asked: “If she was there she would be at her own desk in her own building?”
“If she was there?” Hemy asked, stressing if.
“Right. Is there any way we can verify that? Knowing what you know about GE, is there any way we can verify she is sitting at her desk on November 18.”
“We have badges with electronic—”
Cortellino cut off his answer. “Who can we contact to check?”
Hemy reminded silent.
“Hemy, am I talking too fast for you?”
“No.”
“Simple question.”
The interview, going on for an hour, had taken a more confrontational tone, Hemy’s evasive answers met with ever-sharper questions from Cortellino.
“There’s a facilities manager,” Hemy said. “I guess with reports, I don’t know.”
“What time did you get there on the eighteenth?”
“Around five thirty. I got in early.”
“Is that a normal hour to get in there?”
“No. I’ve done it in the past, not normal, but we had, I had several—not the project with Andrea, but another big project I’m working on.”
“So on the eighteenth, five thirty you get there, six thirty you’re working, seven thirty you’re working, people starting to come in? People seeing you, saying hello?”
“Yeah, normal day.”
“So Rusty gets shot sometime in the morning. How does the news hit?”
“Again, the first thing I knew was when Andrea contacted me.”
“How did she do that?”
“She sent me a text and called me.”
Barnes asked, “What did she say in the text?”
“It was—there was an accident.”
The text actually went to another employee named Alan who worked in the office next to hers, said Hemy. Alan then texted Hemy saying, “I need to make contact with you. Andrea has a family emergency.”
It was later in the morning, Hemy said, when he heard directly from Andrea. She had tried calling him on his cell phone, but he hadn’t picked it up. When he saw the missed call he dialed her back, reaching her in a car as she was going to the hospital with her parents.
“When you talked to her on the phone, how did she sound?” asked Cortellino, resuming the questioning.
“Very distressed.”
“Have you ever heard her in a distressed moment before?” the detective asked.
“Not really. She was sort of shaky.”
“Did you say: Let me talk to your parents to find out what’s going on?”
“She didn’t give me much of an opportunity to say anything,” said Hemy. “Again she said, ‘There’s been a serious accident with Rusty’ or something like that. ‘I need for you to handle the office. I ran out.’”
“And later on in the day you learned that Rusty had died?”
“Yeah, somewhere around twelve thirty.”
“And how did you learn that?”
“Again, Alan came to me,” said Hemy. “He was in our building and he came up to me and said Andrea had called him and said Rusty died. Now, we didn’t know how or what.”
Hemy said he went to the human resources manager with the news that Andrea Sneiderman’s husband had died. An hour later, Alan called to say that another employee had seen an online news report that Rusty had been shot.
“What were you guys thinking at that point that he’s been shot?” asked Cortellino.
“What we were trying to do is keep the information to what we know,” said Hemy. He sent around an email saying that Andrea had to leave the office due to personal reasons. “I didn’t even say that her husband had died.”
He said he left the office at about 6 p.m. and went to Ruthy’s apartment. He returned to work the next day, Friday.
“You were able to carry on?” asked Cortellino.
“It was difficult,” Hemy said. “I don’t think I was very functional at that point.”
The detective asked if Andrea had called Hemy that Friday night.
“No,” he said.
“Did you try calling her that night?” asked Cortellino.
“No, no. I’m her boss, but I mean, she’s dealing with a tragedy. What am I going to do?”
The next time he saw her was two days later, Sunday, at the funeral for Rusty, but he didn’t talk to her. “She was in bad shape.”
Returning to the day of the murder, Cortellino asked Hemy a second time to retrace his actions. Hemy said that while it was a normal day at work, he had left at one point to run an errand.
“My car was in the shop,” he said.
“What shop was that?” asked Cortellino.
“Ed Voyles Honda,” said Hemy, referring to a dealership about two miles away.
“They had a safety recall that they needed to do. It was going to be like a day job or something and, stupid me, I asked them if they would give me a car because Ed Voyles is pretty cheap and they’re—my wife has a Lexus and they always give her a car.”
Cortellino asked what the recall was for.
“The transmission or something,” said Hemy. He said he had gone to Ed Voyles on Wednesday, the day before the shooting. When the garage wouldn’t give him a car, he went to a rental agency.
“What did you rent? Did they give you another Honda?”
“No.”
“What did you get?”
“It was a Kia minivan,” said Hemy, “white or gray.”
“Where’d you pick it up at?”
“Enterprise,” he said, giving an address across the street from the garage.
Hemy said he drove the Kia to work the next day—the day of the shooting—and returned it around 11 a.m.
Cortellino asked: “I want to ask you a personal question, man-to-man, just between us.”
“Okay,” Hemy said.
“What was your relationship with Andrea? Be honest.”
“Andrea and I are friends,” he said.
Cortellino locked eyes with Hemy.
“She works for me, of course,” Hemy said. “So the first part of the relationship is she’s my employee. Umm, we connected. We’re friends. I find her attractive and, and I indicated that to her and she—but again, you know, I’m her manager, so we—”
“You gotta be careful?” asked Cortellino.
“You don’t want to play those games,” said Hemy, “and I said, you know, in the future, when I have a different job, you know, I’d like to continue to develop the relationship. And she basically said no, I’m committed to Rusty and it ain’t gonna happen.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“Yeah,” said Hemy. Then added: “Why?”
There was suspicion in his voice, the new line of questioning appearing to rattle him.
“I’m asking, that’s why,” Cortellino snapped. “’Cause I wasn’t there. Did she send you emails about it?”
“No, verbal.”
“You’re traveling, you get close, you’re having dinner, you feel good about her but clearly she isn’t feeling the same for you?”
“Right, we’re very friendly, but again, she said, I’m committed—made a commitment to Rusty.”
As he asked questions, Cortellino had been moving his chair even closer to table. He was now inches from Hemy, leaning in. Hemy moved back.
“You’re a guy, I’m a guy, you pick up vibes,” said Cortellino.
Hemy sputtered, “I talk about my children and what they’re going through, and, you know, she’s telling me there’s pressures in the house because before she was the one that was in the house.”
“This is good,” Cortellino said. “This is important, man.”
“And now, he’s the one that’s in the house and now she has to come to work. The initial agreement was that she’d be home at three thirty and she can’t get home by three thirty.”
“Right.”
“Because sometimes there are meetings.”
“She’s venting with you. She feels comfortable with you.”
“Yeah, I mean, she’s venting with me. I’m venting with her. This is creating a lot of conflict. And again because our relationship was a friendship, and I’m the manager, I told her, I said—I gave her suggestions of how to make it work better, do things like leave earlier, take care of the kids, work later.”
Hemy said he knew he couldn’t take the relationship any farther “as long as she reports to me” but his feelings for her lingered. “She’s a terrific lady.”
“Awkward?” asked Cortellino.
“Once the boundaries are clear,” said Hemy, “you carry on, you know?”
Cortellino asked if Andrea ever showed signs that she had the same feelings toward him.
“Well, I don’t know,” said Hemy. “Hard to say if it was wishful thinking on my part because of my situation, which it could be. I’ve been thinking about leaving my wife for a while so you might pick up on things that you normally wouldn’t or you see things that aren’t—I’m not a psychologist. I can’t tell you whether it was my imagining that she felt the same way about me.”
“Did you apologize?”
“Yes, it was difficult. I told her this: If you feel in any way at any time that our relationship is becoming unprofessional, you need to tell me right away and I will stop.”
Cortellino asked if Andrea had mentioned any of this to Rusty.
“I don’t think so,” said Hemy.
“Did he call you?”
“No,” insisted Hemy. “If she mentioned it to him, we would be in an awkward—that Tuesday night”—when Hemy went to their home to work with Andrea—“it wouldn’t be, ‘Hey, how’s it going? What’s going on? If there’s anything I can do to help?’”
Barnes asked, “Send her cards, letters, flowers?”
“No,” said Hemy.
“Gifts?”
“No.”
“So let’s get back to the eighteenth,” said Cortellino. “I’m really concerned about that. You’re telling me you’re at work at five thirty, and stayed till eleven o’clock and that’s when you took the van back, checked it in, and got your car out of the shop?”
“Yeah.”
“Hemy, this is what we know,” said Cortellino. “We got that van on video the day that Rusty was shot. I swear, the more I look at you, the more I see the person inside that van. I’m giving you every opportunity, man. I don’t think things should have happened that way. You’ve got a heart, you’ve got a soul, man. You’re not a criminal. Things could just go wrong. Things can go wrong in life.”
Hemy sat impassively as Cortellino continued: “You’re in that van the day of the shooting and I’m just—we’re trying to get you down to say it. And I’m going to say it for you. And then you’re going to feel a lot better by it and that’s why we’re here. You’re here because that van was there.”
“Where?” Hemy appeared puzzled.
“It was over there, where Rusty got shot,” Cortellino said. “Now, Hemy, look at me, don’t doubt I’m telling you what happened, and that’s what you got to say to yourself. You’ve got to admit to yourself what happened. Don’t embarrass yourself by us going to GE and proving that you weren’t there that morning. Don’t and—don’t raise your eyebrow at me. I’m telling you. You were there when Rusty got shot. Now, Hemy, you were there. I know you were, Hemy.”
“How do you know that?” asked Hemy.
“’Cause it’s on video. That van is on the video. The van was there. I’ve got it on video. And this is what you have to do—”
“No,” Hemy said, shaking his head.
“You have to take the blinders off, son. You have to take the blinders off and have to look at the big picture. You start looking at yourself to help Andrea with this. Help her understand how this happened. Give us the reason why this happened. Why did it happen? Something triggered you in your mind for it to go like that. But why?”
Hemy said: “I don’t have an answer for you.”
Barnes now spoke again. “Listen, it’s gotta be eating you up. He saw your face.”
“What’s that?”
“He saw your face. Did he recognize you? Was there shock on his face even though you were in disguise?”
Hemy didn’t answer.
* * *
For the next couple of hours, Hemy dug in. He refused to answer their questions, dodged questions by answering with a question of his own, shaking his head, raising his eyebrow, calm in his intransigence. The detectives pounded at him with every tactic they could think of. They appealed to his humanity, urged him to ease the burden of bottling up a terrible truth, to stop embarrassing himself, to “man up.” They suggested that Hemy was captivated by the “attractive” Andrea but “jealousy gets in the heart” and he killed out of envy for Rusty.
“Motive is because Rusty’s got what you want,” Cortellino said.
They appealed to his intelligence, implored him to recognize the unbelievable coincidence that the killer drove the exact same kind of van that he had rented. “What are the odds? What are the odds of that?” asked Cortellino.
Barnes showed Hemy the surveillance photo stills and then video of the van.
But Hemy wouldn’t budge.
“I don’t know what to tell you. I’m not there,” said Hemy.
They told him he was too smart to talk like this, that they could easily check with GE security and his co-workers to destroy what little alibi he offered. Hemy responded, “If I’m such a smart man why would I do something so stupid.” Cortellino suggested, “Because the heart overcomes the brain.”
The interview devolved into a series of soliloquies by Cortellino and Barnes about truth, justice, family, love, passion, the unbearable load of guilt, and the unfairness of life.
Hemy just listened.
When the speeches didn’t work, the detectives went old-school good cop/bad cop, with Cortellino being the friendly one saying he merely wanted Hemy to ease his conscience, while Barnes dished out bad cop show lines saying nobody was leaving this cramped room until Hemy spilled the truth. “Listen, friend, the jig is up,” said Barnes, “you know. You’re our guy.”
This failing, the detectives spun elaborate metaphors, telling Hemy that his world had become a funnel and everything was going into it and Hemy was drawing down “like a damn toilet.” Hemy again said nothing.
The only time Hemy seemed thrown off was when they brought up his wife. They asked if she knew about Andrea. When they threatened to talk to her, he said the only thing his wife knew was that he and Andrea had recently taken a business trip together to England.
“That’s what she’ll tell you,” said Hemy, fidgeting. “Other than that there’s nothing else for my wife to tell you.”
As the session ground into the fourth hour, Hemy seemed to wear down the detectives. Nerves frayed. Barnes left the room at one point, then returned with a renewed anger.
“Well it’s pretty simple to us,” Barnes said.
“It is?” asked Hemy.
“Sure, he’s gone, man,” the detective said, referring to Rusty. “There’s your chance.”
“Commit murder?” Hemy said, exasperation creeping into his voice. “Are you kidding me?”
“The question is,” Barnes said, “are you kidding me?”
Hemy waved his arms. “To devastate Andrea?”
“Do you think you’re kidding us?” Barnes snapped.
“Why? Where? Where in my wildest dreams would I imagine that Andrea wouldn’t be devastated by this?” Hemy asked.
Cortellino jumped in, suggesting, “Maybe she’s in on it. Maybe we need to look at that.”
Hemy looked away in disgust. He grabbed the water cup.
Cortellino pressed on. “Maybe she needs to be in here. Maybe we need to get her butt in here? Maybe she put you up to it? Maybe it’s her plan? Maybe we do have the wrong man. Maybe it’s her driving your van? That’s a spin.”
“Yeah,” said Hemy sarcastically.
“You’re all right with that?”
“With what?”
“Andrea being in the van? You lent her the van?”
“Yeah, right.”
Finally, Hemy said he needed a break. He asked to go to the bathroom again. A disgusted Cortellino said, “Go pee and think about it. Go piss this out. You’re confused, you’re lost right now.”
After Hemy returned, Barnes left the room, an apparent tactic to get Cortellino alone with Hemy.
“You’re a very smart man,” Cortellino told him.
“If I’m such a smart man why would I do something so stupid?” asked Hemy impetuously.
“Because the heart overcomes the brain,” said Cortellino. Then he played good cop one more time, saying of Barnes, “He’s more confident about it than I am. He’s the evidence guy. I just deal with emotions. I’m not the one writing … He’s a gopher. He’s gonna dig it out.”
* * *
It didn’t work. Hemy seemed to become energized, engaging in verbal sparring. When Cortellino told him to come clean, to think about himself, Hemy replied, “Earlier you told me that I’m only thinking about myself and I have to think about others. Now you’re telling me that I have to think about myself.”
Barnes then walked back into the interview room. His voice was tough: “Here’s a question for you: What do you think should be done to the person that shot Rusty?”
An incredulous Hemy answered: “What do I think should be done to the person that shot Rusty?”
“Yeah.”
“What kind of question is that?”
“Damn straightforward.”
“I know but—why are you—you’re sitting here accusing me of doing that.”
“And you’re sitting over there neither confirming nor denying that you’re the person that shot him,” said Barnes. “So my question is: Are you prepared to tell me that you’re not the guy?’Cause you haven’t said, all afternoon, you have not said: I did not do it. Interesting.”
Cortellino piled on. “Look me in the eye and tell me you didn’t do it.”
Hemy waved his arms around again. “Look, you, you, you guys are, are are—”
“I can’t hear man. I can’t,” said Cortellino.
“You sit there and crowd me,” said Hemy. “You, you come up with all this stuff. You—you’re accusing me of something, and it was obvious from the beginning, because I knew you guys called me about the car, that you’re somehow implicating me in this whole thing.”
“Shut up just a second,” Barnes said. “Is that your story? Are you here to tell us on a stack of Bibles that I did not shoot Rusty Sneiderman?”
Hemy paused, then mumbled to himself. Barnes leaned across the table. Cortellino was so close to Hemy, their legs nearly brushed.
Hemy spoke slowly, deliberately. “I was not there,” he said. “I did not pull the trigger on the gun that shot Rusty Sneiderman.”
After more than five hours in the little interview room, the detectives finally gave up. They seized the iPhone and iPad that Hemy was carrying and gave him one last chance to admit he murdered Rusty Sneiderman. They told him they would soon subpoena his cell phone records, which would place him at a cell phone tower near the preschool at the time Rusty was gunned down.
“How are you going to explain that away?” asked Cortellino.
“There’s nothing to explain because it won’t be there,” said Hemy. “I wasn’t there.”
Hemy was escorted out of the interview room, handcuffed, and taken to the DeKalb County Jail. He had his fingerprints taken and posed for a mug shot before going to jail for the first time in his life.