Delaware County Daily Times - Jan 21, 2002 Article

Sileo's latest explanation stretches the imagination by Phil Heron

Delaware County Daily Times (Primos - Upper Darby, PA) - Monday, January 21, 2002

It's always the faces that stay with you. Usually they're kids, beaming out at you from the pages of the newspaper. I've been doing this now for more than 20 years. And still the stories about the kids stick with me. I hope they always do.

It was happening again last week. There was that angelic face of tiny, little Katelyn Rivera -Helton. She was last seen on the night of Aug. 10, 1999, at a gas station in Chadds Ford. Her father, Robert Rivera , showed up there to buy some gas with Katelyn in the back seat. He returned a few hours later. Katelyn wasn't with him. She hasn't been seen since.

Last week Rivera went on trial on first-degree murder charges. Police say he abducted little Katelyn from the home of her day care provider. What exactly happened to the little girl is still unknown.

There is still a spot deep inside me that wants to believe Rivera 's story that he gave the girl away to a couple at Longwood Gardens. You hope for a miracle, that Katelyn is still alive somewhere. You want to believe that a man couldn't do what authorities allege Rivera did.

No matter how shocking, how despicable the details we report in the paper, there is always the gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach that there is another explanation, that certainly people can't possibly do some of the things they are charged with. You hunt for some glimmer of redeeming value, for some possible explanation, for some story that could defend their actions.

Then there's Guy Sileo.

Mr. Sileo's puffy mug was back on our front page last week. You might have seen it. Sileo has a new explanation for the murder of Jim Webb, his partner at the General Wayne Inn. It was plastered all over our Page One. Under the overline of "Sileo's new story" were four simple words: The girlfriend did it.

The page went together exactly as I wanted it to. And I still winced when I looked at the paper the next morning.

Felicia Moyse was a sous chef at the General Wayne. She was 20 years old. And she apparently was in love with Sileo, a married man with whom she was having an affair, according to testimony at his trial. She thought Sileo was going to leave his wife, that they were going to have a life together.

She was wrong. When told by Sileo he was going back to his wife, the despondent Moyse took her own life.

Sileo, who now faces life in jail for murdering his partner in what authorities say was an effort to cash in on a life insurance policy that named him as beneficiary, has maintained his innocence in the murder. And now he says he knows who did pull the trigger that ended Webb's life.

Moyse did.

That's right. Sileo last week filed papers seeking a new trial. In them he says Moyse confided in him that she shot Webb in the head because he disapproved of her relationship with Sileo.

How convenient. Unfortunately, Moyse is not here to defend herself. Fortunately, the Montgomery County District Attorney's office is. They say they investigators quizzed her extensively, that she had an alibi and even passed a lie detector test, even if it's not admissible in court.

When I heard of Sileo's latest legal filing, I wondered just how low a person could go. And I thought of Moyse's parents. First they lost their daughter. Now they must deal with this despicable attempt to smear her reputation. When we contacted them for comment, they declined. They are better people than I am.

After a judge imposed a life sentence on Sileo, District Attorney Bruce Castor referred to him as "slime." I remember I was taken aback by what seemed like an unusually strident stance by a public official. After last week's filing, Castor had more to say.

"There is no string of negative adjectives sufficient to convey how I feel about Guy Sileo," Castor said. "I think he's despicable."

Convicted perjurer. Convicted killer. Now pointing the finger at a 20-year-old girl whose death in part stems from her relationship with him.

Despicable? It's an understatement.

Philip E. Heron is editor of the Daily Times. Call him at (610) 622-8818. E-mail him at editor@delcotimes.com.