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Corpse in the Septic Tank
By Associated Press
Contributed by Elizabeth Parker
Hopkinton, R.I
On a September morning in the
southwestern woods of Rhode Island, as the maples and oaks were
changing into their autumn splendor, Greg Siner noticed a stench as
he walked by the septic tank of his rambling old Victorian home.
Siner shoved aside the heavy cement lid to see if the tank
needed to be pumped.
"I looked in," he says, "and there was a skull staring up at
me."
Siner rushed into the house to tell Gardner Young, who bought
the home with Siner a year ago. Young called police.
Police believe the skeleton in the tank is all that remains of
Camilla Lyman, the previous owner of the house, who disappeared a
decade ago. They also believe that Lyman, a transvestite
millionaire and breeder of champion spaniels, was murdered. After
all, there are easier ways to commit suicide than climbing into a
septic tank.
What else did investigators find when the siphoned the septic
tank? And who do they think killed Lyman?
Police, concerned about compromising the investigation, aren't
saying. Nor will they confirm rumors that they found cinder blocks
wired to the remains.
Lyman's disappearance didn't arouse suspicion at first. In fact,
there was no official search of Lyman's 40 acres until John
Scuncio, a retired state police detective, took over as Hopkinton
police chief a year ago and reopened the long-dormant case. At the
same moment that Siner found the skull in the tank, Scuncio was on
another part of the 40-acre estate, searching for a body.
Lyman, 54 at the time of her disappearance, was the daughter of
Arthur T. Lyman, an affluent Bostonian with more than 30 years of
public service in Massachusetts, including stints as commissioner
of corrections and commissioner of conservation.
According to friends and family members, Lyman's father doted on
her and she deeply felt his loss after he died of lung cancer in
1968. Sometime after that, Lyman's transformation into a man began.
The Brahmin heiress attended national dog shows wearing short
hair, a mustache she grew with the help of steroids intended for
her dogs, bolo ties and herringbone jackets. In her masculine
guise, Lyman bore a spooky resemblance to her father.
Lyman bought the Hopkinton house in 1984. When she wasn't at dog
shows, she had little to do with the outside world. She was cranky
to her neighbors. A stockade fence at the front of her property
kept out the unwanted. She had even grown distant from her own
relatives.
"She was cute and perky" in her youth, says Lyman's sister,
Mary Margaret Goodale of Boston. "She began to withdraw from us
(the family) in the 1970s. I don't know why."
A small circle of trusted associates living around Hopkinton
took care of Lyman's practical matters, leaving the heiress to
devote herself to her 58 dogs.
One of those associates was George T. O'Neil, a fellow dog
breeder from nearby North Kingstown, whom Lyman apparently
considered her best human friend. O'Neil cashed Lyman's checks for
her, picked up her mail, had power of attorney over her affairs and
was the sole beneficiary in her will, according to testimony at a
1994 probate hearing dealing with Lyman's estate.
O'Neil didn't inform police about Lyman's disappearance, even
though he conceded noticing in July 1987 that she was missing, the
probate records show. But O'Neil did keep maintaining Lyman's house
and taking care of her dogs.
Police learned of Lyman's disappearance in December 1988, when
her brother filed a missing-persons report with the Hopkinton
police.
George Weeden, then the local police chief, saw no reason to
doubt O'Neil's contention that Lyman frequently went off for
extended periods without telling anyone. So Weeden chose not to dig
up Lyman's property to look for her.
Lyman's brother and two sisters, however, were alarmed. They
thought their sister loved her dogs too much to leave them for
months. In August of 1988, they hired a private investigator to
look for her.
Six years later, after the search proved futile, the three
siblings went to probate court to have Camilla Lyman declared
legally dead -- and to keep an estimated $2 million that had been
set aside for her in family trust funds from falling into the wrong
hands.
In a settlement with the Lyman family, O'Neil got Camilla's
Hopkinton property, which was sold to Siner and Young last year,
but received no part of the family trust funds.
Hopkinton Probate Court Judge Linda Urso declared Lyman legally
dead in June 1995. In her written ruling, Urso said that some
"disturbing facts surround her absence" and that O'Neil's
testimony during the proceedings was "not wholly credible."
"The circumstances surrounding Lyman's disappearance as
described by Mr. O'Neil are sketchy, and his actions for a long
period of time thereafter are unsettling," Urso wrote, noting that
"he continued to run Lyman's affairs as if nothing had happened."
Charles John Allen, the Boston private detective hired by
Lyman's siblings, said O'Neil told him early in his investigation
that Camilla had gone off to Europe for a sex change operation.
Allen had informants in Europe's transvestite scene snoop around to
see if anyone fitting Lyman's description had had the operation,
but no trace of her was found.
Allen says he wanted to search Lyman's property but O'Neil
wouldn't let him. Allen probed Lyman's bank accounts to find out
what was happening to interest income from her trust funds that was
still being paid out after she disappeared.
"It was sort of troubling," says Allen. "There were fairly
large amounts of money that couldn't be traced." Allen would not
go into details, but said he has given his file on the matter to
police.
Contacted by telephone, O'Neil refused to talk with The
Associated Press. Cranston attorney Roberta Ragosta, who also
helped manage Lyman's financial affairs, has avoided reporters as
well.
The Lyman case has been a frustrating one for Allen, whose firm
boasts it located all of the 8,000 or so people it has been hired
to find over the years -- all but Camilla Lyman.
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