Up next,
this investigation
is off to a shaky start.
This is a whole different
type of autopsy
because of the condition
of his body.
A lot of valuable time
and clues have been lost.
As time goes on, you can lose
DNA evidence,
you can lose witnesses.
Detectives fear
a k*ller won't be caught
until his own words
seal his fate.
In 26 years, I've never had
the k*ller's voice
basically admitting what
he did right there on audio.
Founded in 1642,
Warwick, Rhode Island,
is one of the oldest cities
in America...
a place long defined by its
proximity to the Atlantic Ocean.
We have so much coastline
that water-life is inherent
to everybody who lives here.
I know so many people
that have a boat.
So obviously in the summer,
that's when people are out
on their boats
and they're parked
at marinas, dinghies,
all sorts of, you know,
apparatus related to the boats.
Countless boats
and lives have been lost
to the sea over the decades,
many falling victim
to volatile weather.
From the West Bay
mobile newsroom,
iWitness News moves
to West Warwick,
where we're getting
a great look at the storm
that we've never seen before.
On August 4, 2015,
a weather phenomenon
known as a macroburst
devastated the area.
This was an unusual event.
My guess is there were
in the range
of 90-to 120-mile-an-hour winds.
The only way that I can think
of describing it...
sort of a mini tornado.
A storm with this kind of power
wreaked havoc on many boats
along the coast.
It was chaotic.
The microburst had everything
out of sorts.
It wasn't uncommon for boats
to be pulled off their mooring
or taken off their anchor.
So when
in the aftermath of the storm,
the local harbormaster
saw a 26-foot sailboat
called the Star Capella
floating off the shore,
he didn't think much of it.
The boat was dragging anchor.
Of course, he called out before
he boarded the boat.
Nobody answered.
So, he took the boat, put it
onto one of the city moorings.
Before he did that,
he checked the boat, looked in,
saw a lot of debris, cushions,
no signs of anybody in the boat.
The harbormaster towed the boat
to a mooring for safe keeping.
No one claimed it.
When he came back 11 days later,
he noticed something unusual.
There was a very foul odor
coming from the boat.
So he boarded it to see
if he can find out
where that smell
was coming from.
The smell was coming
from a badly decomposed
human body
covered up with a jumble of
material from inside the boat.
The body wasn't found
during the initial search
because the harbormaster
hadn't expected to find
anyone on board.
And also because the body
was covered with debris.
We could not tell if the body
was a male or female, age, race.
The prior two weeks
to that point
had been in the mid 80s
to lower 90s,
so the weather and
the conditions did not help
in our investigation.
The body was so decomposed,
detectives couldn't even tell
how or when the victim d*ed.
Was the death something that
was completely accidental
or was this the result
of some other act,
possibly even a homicide?
The medical examiner
was presented with a body
nearly devoid
of identifying features.
Our number-one
challenge in this case
is "I don't know who this is."
After we undressed the body,
we could tell it
had male features,
and that's basically
all we can say.
We don't know the age.
We don't know the race.
And obviously fingerprints
are no longer there.
They had decomposed away.
They'd melted away.
A full autopsy showed
the victim had broken ribs.
Despite the decomposition,
bruising was found deep
in the victim's skull.
But these findings didn't
necessarily indicate foul play.
After all, the macroburst storm
was unusually powerful.
Could it have been that
the boat was knocked around
so much that the person
could have slipped and fallen,
hit their head,
and then things landed on them?
Was he m*rder*d
and then covered up?
Or was it just an accident
in really bad weather?
A key finding put
the accident theory to rest.
The victim's hyoid bone...
a floating bone located
in the neck... was broken.
That would not have happened accidentally.
It was a true fracture.
This one little bone
will tell me
that there was significant
pressure applied to the neck,
and he was basically strangled.
Doctors and detectives
now knew their victim
had been m*rder*d.
The problem was days had passed
and they still had no idea
who he was.
About the only thing
detectives knew
about their m*rder victim
was that he was a male
and not young.
They combed area missing
person's records
and found no one who fit this
admittedly broad description.
Even worse, a lot of time
had passed
since the m*rder,
a significant setback
for any investigation.
They knew they had already been
at least 10 days removed
from when this m*rder
may have occurred.
So, they knew the clock
was ticking.
So, there was a lot
of catch-up to do
in order to find out
some of these things
to figure out exactly what it
is that happened.
The boat belonged
with 70-year-old man
named Fernando Silva.
Police contacted his brother,
who hadn't heard
from him for days
but was able to provide
valuable information.
We were able to actually
pinpoint a date
and a time that his boat
was docked at a marina
and we began our investigation
at that location.
Now that detectives
knew where the boat was docked
before the macroburst storm,
they had a starting point.
They questioned a man who
worked security at that marina.
He was able to confirm
that the boat in question
was entered several times
by two young males
at very odd hours,
being very early in the morning,
and he stated that
he questioned them
on about three
different occasions.
These two men...
the security man
didn't know them...
said they were helping a man
who identified himself
as Freddy install a new engine.
They came back repeatedly
in the days
before the macroburst storm
to continue their work.
They came back
with what appeared to be
a new motor,
but they weren't
too mechanically savvy
and were unable
to get the boat started.
Detectives needed
to identify these two men.
But first they had to see
if the dead man in the morgue
was Fernando Silva.
Many people recognized the name.
They knew a Navy veteran
nicknamed Captain Freddy
who was a regular on the docks.
Freddy, where are you headed?
Captain Freddy was sort of
a maritime vagabond,
I would say.
He had no experience with boats.
He fell in love with boats
and wasn't really sure
what to do with them
other than to be on them.
He lived on his boat.
Freddy chronicled
his feelings in a book
he was writing called
"The Blessed Voyage."
He was such a character
that even local filmmakers
got him to tell his story.
I bought it because it was
actually bigger than the car.
The car was falling apart.
But I just abandoned it
in the parking lot
and I walked all the way
back to the boat
and it was the end of that.
Dental records were found
and matched dental X-rays
from the victim.
A DNA comparison with a known
relative confirmed his identity.
It was Mr. Fernando Silva,
sometimes called Captain Freddy
to his friends at the marina.
We have a definite forensic
method for identifying him.
Now that police knew
who Captain Freddy was,
they backtracked him in the days
leading to the macroburst storm
that sent his boat out to sea.
Four nights before that storm,
Captain Freddy won several
hundred dollars
playing Keno,
a legal computer-gambling game
found all over the region.
He was known as being very lucky
and in the establishments
that he frequented,
they all knew him
as playing that very often.
Shortly before the storm,
Captain Freddy hit it big
playing Keno,
and he let a lot of people
know it.
He didn't have very much money,
so when he struck it, in his
mind, he hit the jackpot.
This was a big, big win for him.
And he was excited about it.
But when
Captain Freddy was found dead,
that money was gone.
It wasn't in his boat
or with his body.
The captain didn't have much,
but it appeared
what little he had
may have led to his m*rder.
A couple people saw
that he won and ultimately,
their knowledge of him
winning that money
might have led to the crime.
After Captain
Freddy Silva's boat
was found at sea
during a severe summer storm,
it was towed back
to a local marina.
Detectives traced the boat
back to where it was originally
docked and discovered
that two unknown men
had spent a lot of time
on the captain's boat in
the days after he went missing.
In a crucial break
for investigators,
these men were recorded
by surveillance cameras.
I was going through
basically two weeks of video,
which was about
You really have to look
at everything,
because we don't know
what happened,
how it happened
and that necessarily
these two were necessarily
the ones involved.
People at the marina
told detectives
that one of these men
might be Troy Gunderway,
a local man, a petty criminal,
almost instantly recognizable
because of the large eye
tattooed on his skull.
Troy Gunderway
was a resident of Warwick
who had been in and out
of prison.
He had worked odds-and-end jobs
when he wasn't incarcerated.
And further investigation
learned that Troy Gunderway
had known Fernando Silva
prior to the m*rder.
And that he, in fact,
had assisted Fernando
in attempting to get a motor for
that boat on a previous date.
Detectives asked Troy Gunderway
about the other man
who was seen working with him
on Captain Freddy's boat.
Mr. Gunderway
said that he was with a friend
that he called Big Red,
and he believes
his real name was Rich.
After a little
digging, detectives came up
with a name...
Richard Baribault.
Richard Baribault had
had several run-ins
with the police.
He had served approximately a
quarter of his life behind bars.
Most of it was drug-related,
alcohol-related,
and domestic-abuse related.
A further background
check showed Baribault
had a suspended
driver's license.
And he was driving a pickup
truck that might or might not
be the one
in this surveillance video
sh*t near the marina where
the Captain docked his boat.
On the night that we believe
Captain Freddy was k*lled,
a maroon pickup truck
with the same sticker pattern
as found
on Mr. Baribault's pickup truck
left the marina
at pretty much the time
that we thought
the incident had occurred.
Now that detectives
knew who Baribault was,
they simply waited until he got
behind the wheel
and pulled him over.
At which point, he was arrested
for operating
on a suspended license
and operating a motor vehicle
without registration.
In one of Baribault's pockets,
they found a Kn*fe with a blade
over 3 inches...
in itself,
a violation of state law.
Even worse for Baribault,
the Kn*fe appeared
to have blood on it.
I asked Mr. Baribault
if there would be any reason
for blood to be on the Kn*fe.
He stated the only reasons
would be his own blood,
which he might have cut himself,
or the blood of fish
when he has gone fishing.
The Kn*fe
was sent out for testing.
Baribault admitted to police
that he saw Freddy
the night he d*ed,
but said Troy Gunderway
had m*rder*d the captain,
not him.
But what Baribault didn't know
was that investigators
had a surprise
piece of evidence...
his own voice trying
to get information
on how to cover up a m*rder.
So in the search warrant,
when they search with Google
through a voice search
on the phone,
it actually records your voice
in your exact words.
Troy Gunderway told police
he and Richard Baribault
knew Captain Freddy was flush
with cash
after his wins at Keno
and their plan
was to steal that money.
So they decided
that due to his age
and the fact
that he was on a boat,
and there probably wouldn't
be anybody else around,
they thought he'd be
an easy target to rob.
Baribault and Gunderway
pointed fingers at each other
as Captain Freddy's k*ller.
Detectives thought
both men were involved,
but they needed
evidence to prove it.
So they confiscated and examined
both men's cellphones.
Typically, when we get a phone,
we go through
an extraction process
where we hook the phone up
to a forensic computer
and we extract the information
from the hard drive
of that phone.
That's going to include something
as simple as user settings
to things like location history,
telephone calls, chats,
apps that you've used.
There's a myriad of information
that you can get from that.
In fact, a lot of information
vital to any m*rder
investigation...
where the suspect was,
what time he was there,
who he was talking to...
can be gleaned
from a forensic examination
of a cellphone.
And Baribault's phone
was a potential gold mine
of evidence.
We were able to determine
the location of the cellphone
prior to the m*rder,
the night of the m*rder,
during the m*rder
and after the m*rder.
And therefore, we can link
the cellphone location
with Mr. Baribault.
The examination showed
both suspects' phones
were on Captain Freddy's boat
early on the morning
of August 1st just hours
after the captain
won big playing Keno.
And those phones were also
at the boat
many times in the days
that followed.
But some questions remained.
Who's holding the phone?
Who's making the call?
A lot of that stuff, you could
come up with a defense,
you could come up
with an excuse or an alibi.
A combination of evidence
solved that problem.
The locations provided by both
suspects' phones matched up
to the second
with surveillance images
of two previously unknown men
getting on and off
Captain Freddy's boat.
Over the course of four days,
I saw them come and go from
the boat a minimum of 10 times.
Even though Richard
Baribault maintained his innocence,
the most damning clue
against him
came straight from his own mouth
through a voice search he did
on his Google search engine.
Between August 1st
and August 4th,
we were able to find from Google
several audio recordings
in Mr. Baribault's voice.
That was very telling
due to the fact
that we found a gallon
full of bleach
where Mr. Silva was located.
The evidence was overwhelming.
There were many questions
which he was asking Google
to see if the answers
would be right there for him.
By now the results
from the forensic examination
of Baribault's Kn*fe
had come in and confirmed
what investigators
already suspected.
The blood was Captain Freddy's.
There's really
no other reason for his blood
to be on that Kn*fe,
except that he was there
at the time when
Mr. Silva was m*rder*d.
Prosecutors believe
Gunderway and Baribault
knew Captain Freddy had won
a couple hundred dollars
playing Keno.
They snuck on
to the captain's boat,
expecting to overpower him
and steal his money.
On board, Baribault held
Captain Freddy at knifepoint,
drawing the blood
that remained on the w*apon
even weeks after the att*ck.
When Freddy fought back,
he was beaten, strangled,
and left for dead.
For the next four days,
Baribault and Gunderway
tried to clean up the scene,
doing Google searches
on Baribault's phone
to see how they could
best do the job.
At every moment
in the attempted coverup,
their phones
and surveillance video
documented their locations.
In an attempt to hide
the evidence, they drove
Captain Freddy's boat out to sea
and abandoned it,
hoping this floating crime scene
would never be found.
But the macroburst storm
just days after the m*rder
did something
they hadn't counted on...
it caused the boat to float back
towards the shoreline,
where it was later found
by the harbormaster.
Ultimately, Captain Freddy's
decomposing body
exposed the crime
and tied Baribault and Gunderway
to his boat, to his corpse,
and to his m*rder.
But it was
Baribault's own voice,
looking for information
on how to conceal the crime
that sealed his fate.
A Google search
has a date, a timestamp,
and a GPS coordinate location
of that exact search.
There was no denying.
It was his voice asking
that question
at that specific time
in that specific location.
In 2017,
Troy Gunderway pled guilty
to second-degree m*rder
and got 55 years in prison.
Richard "Big Red" Baribault,
who elected, despite
the evidence against him,
to go to trial, got life
plus 10 years
all for a m*rder that came down
to just a few hundred dollars.
Captain Freddy had a large
and loving family.
They were very supportive of him
and everything that he did.
It was very emotional.
Those wounds are very much real
and very much still fresh,
and to have to hear the evidence
and what happened that night,
and how these people just went
on with their regular lives
and didn't really give it
much thought
after they got rid of the boat,
that's tough.
It's always good
to catch the bad guy,
but in this particular case,
that satisfaction is multiplied
when you can go to the family
and say, "Hey, listen,
unfortunate circumstances,
but we are able to find
the person responsible
and they're going to pay
for what they did."
The electronic
evidence that we were able
to get definitely sealed
the deal with the jury's eyes.
A lot of juries want these
CSI fingerprints.
They want that
undeniable evidence.
And it just so happens
that we were able to get that.