How Not to Get Rid of a Body S01E03 Graveyard Shift
After police officers find a murder victim inside a Civil War crypt in a historic cemetery in Southwest Philadelphia, detectives from two different counties navigate the evils of a notorious motorcycle club to attempt and solve the case.
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00:00This case is Dracula meets the Sons of Anarchy.
00:15I've never seen anybody go to this length to dispose of and conceal the body.
00:25They told us that there was no body to look for.
00:30The most offensive thing I can think of, to do that to another human being, alive or dead.
00:38It was a genius plan that they concocted.
00:42They thought they were smart.
00:45They were completely outmatched.
01:09In early February 2020, a person by the name of Dottie Palumbo came into the Alberta Police
01:15Department to report her son, Keith Palumbo, missing.
01:22I went up the steps and the man said, can I help you?
01:26And I said, yes, I want to report my son missing.
01:31And the first thing he asked me was, how old is your son?
01:34And I said, he's 36.
01:38Love you.
01:40And I said, something's wrong.
01:42It's not like him to not call me.
01:48Keith and I became best friends in nursery school.
01:52When I first found out he disappeared, yeah, I was like instantly sick to my stomach, because
01:59I knew deep down, like, that's not Keith.
02:01He would never let his mother worry like that.
02:09We learned that Keith was a very beloved person within the community.
02:14Keith was a lifelong resident of Delaware County, Pennsylvania.
02:18He was an accomplished musician.
02:22He had a toy guitar when he was maybe like four, and keyboard, little keyboard, any kind
02:29of instrument, really.
02:32He just loved music.
02:34He started two different bands with two different groups of friends.
02:44Keith was a prodigy.
02:45It was unbelievable, like, how fast he could move his fingers.
02:49I mean, he was, he was gifted.
03:02His mother, Dottie told me that one of the pieces of jewelry that Keith wore all the
03:07time was a gold-plated guitar pick.
03:13It says, Keith, never let the music stop.
03:17Love, Mom.
03:18And he always wore it.
03:20He always had it on.
03:22He was just cool, man.
03:24Without even trying, he was just cool.
03:26Keith was fearless.
03:29He was tough.
03:30He was a badass.
03:31You know, he's not one to tuck tail and run away.
03:42It was the night Keith went missing.
03:56Keith came in.
03:57He went upstairs and got changed.
04:03And when he came down, he grabbed a couple pieces of pizza.
04:10And he said, I'll see you later.
04:13Dottie stated that he left in her silver vehicle.
04:17From that night, he was never seen or heard from again.
04:31This case is at the forefront of our minds.
04:35So Keith was entered into the national database as a missing person.
04:40And then from there, we have a checklist that we follow.
04:44We call all the local hospitals, the morgues, the prisons, homeless shelters, any other
04:52places that we believe that we would be able to find Keith without any success.
05:00We also put in a request to the cell phone provider to obtain his cellular phone records.
05:06And we did prepare an alert for Keith as well as Dottie's silver vehicle.
05:17As part of my research into Keith, I located a report from January 28, 2020, in which he
05:25was a gunshot victim.
05:30That is approximately two weeks to his reported going missing.
05:38Police officers went to the hospital and attempted to interview him.
05:49He would not identify the person who shot him.
05:55I reasonably believe that Keith was in fear for his life at that time.
06:00We were all thinking, did this have something to do with his disappearance?
06:12I believe that Keith had some skeletons in his closet.
06:16He had some secrets.
06:17It is my job to sort through all the information that we're getting and kind of do a deep dive
06:22into his life.
06:32In interviewing Keith's family, they indicated to us that Keith and someone by the name of
06:38Michael DeLuca had been lifelong friends since childhood.
06:48Michael and Keith, they were very good friends.
06:51They were always over my house.
06:52They were at my house for birthday parties.
06:57He looked out for me and Keith.
07:01We never had anything to worry about or fear when we were with Mike.
07:06Mike DeLuca was one of our core best friends.
07:10He was our brother.
07:13I began looking into Michael DeLuca.
07:15He has a very distinctive appearance to him.
07:20Shaved head, tattoos all over his head and neck.
07:25You can't mess up from a mile away.
07:28Michael DeLuca also had a lengthy criminal history, a violent criminal history.
07:33He had only recently gotten out of jail for shooting his girlfriend.
07:39We learned that when he came home from prison, he thought he was going to step into the role
07:44as the leader of the local chapter of the Warlocks Motorcycle Club.
07:54The Warlocks organization, specifically the Harpy Warlocks, are a one percent organization
08:00within Philadelphia and the surrounding counties.
08:04For most of these biker groups, violence is a calling card.
08:08A lot of guys in these biker groups are hardened criminals.
08:17Keith was not a member of the club, but he was absolutely surrounding himself with some
08:23pretty dangerous people that could turn on him in the blink of an eye.
08:27Anybody could have been responsible for Keith's disappearance.
08:37One of the interesting things that we found was that Michael DeLuca was also missing.
08:42He was nowhere to be found.
08:44We thought that perhaps this could possibly be connected to Keith's disappearance.
08:50We were frustrated because we are getting numerous pieces of or tidbits of information
08:56from various sources.
08:58Whoever is responsible for Keith's disappearance made our investigation difficult.
09:09But we got a break in the case when a patrolman found Dottie's car in Kensington.
09:18So this is a missing persons investigation.
09:21Now you have a car turn up in Kensington, a feared neighborhood in Philadelphia.
09:26I think that was the real surprise for investigators.
09:29But if they had never covered a case like this, and they're dealing with an outlaw motorcycle
09:34gang, this is the potential now to really open a can of worms.
09:48Keith Palumbo was last seen on February 6, 2020 in Upper Darby Township.
09:56He was in his mother's vehicle, which was a silver vehicle.
10:03Investigators put out an alert looking for this car.
10:07Days later, they found it in Kensington.
10:20Normally when we find people or vehicles in the Kensington section of Philadelphia, my
10:25initial thought is they're involved in the drug trade.
10:29It is a supermarket for heroin and drugs.
10:33People come from all over the country to go to Kensington to use heroin.
10:40It is not unusual to see dozens of people bent over at the waist, staring at the ground.
10:48It's a cesspool up there.
10:51The detectives were left wondering why was Mrs. Palumbo's car in Kensington and where
10:58was Keith Palumbo?
11:04Keith number one would never leave my car anywhere.
11:08And number two, he wouldn't be in Kensington.
11:11Keith had a problem with drugs when he was younger, but he had been sober for over 10
11:17years.
11:18We thought maybe someone left the car up in Kensington to make it seem like Keith may
11:23have relapsed.
11:24They thought they had the perfect plan to get rid of Keith.
11:31So the car was processed for any latent prints or any physical evidence.
11:38But it was wiped clean.
11:40We believe that there was an effort to try to stay ahead of the police.
11:45It was very difficult.
11:46Whoever did this obviously went to extreme lengths to conceal their crimes.
11:51It's very evil, very calculating.
11:55I was thinking what could have happened to Keith?
11:58Is this a potential homicide case?
12:01Where is this body?
12:10When I found out the car was found in Kensington, I'm talking to Dottie, Keith's mom, and we're
12:16trying to work this out.
12:17We're trying to figure this out.
12:20I was every night wondering, where is Keith?
12:23Where's my best friend?
12:24Like, is he alive?
12:25Is he dead?
12:27We posted on Facebook.
12:29I mean, we were almost 24 hours a day trying to get leads from people that might know something.
12:37At the same time, Keith's best friend and member of the Warlocks, Michael DeLuca, was
12:43still missing, which was out of the ordinary.
12:47We were trying to put all the pieces of the puzzle together.
12:50And we needed to delve into how Michael DeLuca fit into the investigation.
12:57But while we were investigating Keith's disappearance, rumors were flying that Keith could be an
13:04informant for the police.
13:08A lot of the Warlocks club members thought he was a snitch.
13:14We learned that there was an incident between Keith and a patched-in member of the Warlocks
13:20Motorcycle Group by the name of Buck Evans.
13:26Keith was in a house that belonged to Buck Evans' son.
13:32Buck Evans' son was allegedly dealing drugs out of that house.
13:37Shortly after Keith left that house, the police raided that house and arrested Buck Evans'
13:43son.
13:44So Buck thought Keith had snitched on his son.
13:49We've dealt with Buck Evans before in different capacities as the Upper Darby Police Department.
13:57He was in and out of prison for an array of crimes.
14:00But I've talked to the jurisdictions involved and the police departments and the detectives
14:05involved.
14:06A hundred percent, Keith was not a police informant or a snitch.
14:11That's pretty much the worst thing you can do from where we come from, is to rattle someone,
14:16be a snitch.
14:17Keith lived by a code, he was loyal, but he was riding with some pretty dangerous guys.
14:25These guys, they can turn on anybody.
14:28Everything is on the table.
14:29And now you really have to wonder what happened.
14:41We're all like trying to stay hopeful and positive, but it was harder and harder to
14:53remain positive and optimistic as the weeks went by.
15:00As time went on, I knew that he was already gone because it was too long of a time for
15:08him to stay away from us.
15:12We thought that perhaps Keith was probably the victim of homicide, but at this point
15:17he's still listed as a missing person.
15:20So without Keith's body, without locating him, there's really nothing unless someone
15:26could lead us to Keith.
15:29And that stymied us a little bit.
15:34There were a lot of scenarios.
15:36Jeff disappears, they don't know where he is, DeLuca disappears, they don't know where
15:40he is, they're close friends.
15:43Coincidence that they're both disappearing at the same time?
15:47We knew that Warlocks member Buck Evans has a dislike for Keith.
15:54We learned that he has a warrant out for a parole violation.
15:56We went after Buck Evans specifically to see if we can get him to talk about what happened.
16:04The come-to-Jesus moment is when they bring Buck Evans in, and now the investigation really
16:09heats up.
16:27Heading into the interview with Warlocks member Buck Evans, we know that we had to play our
16:32cards right.
16:35We knew that Buck Evans did not like Keith Palumbo.
16:40We brought him to Philadelphia Police Headquarters.
16:46All of a sudden, Buck Evans admits that he was the one who had shot Keith previously
16:52on January 28th.
17:02There was a rumor going around that people thought Keith might have snitched out on that
17:08arrest, right?
17:09Yeah, but it's not real that crazy, honestly, so I don't know.
17:12If Buck was admitting that he shot Keith prior to his disappearance because he believed that
17:19Keith had snitched on his own son, it certainly raises the question of, could he have shot
17:24and killed Keith Palumbo?
17:33Buck Evans was low-hanging fruit and was our only lead, so we decided to continue with
17:38the information that he was providing us.
18:02It's then Buck Evans told us that before Keith went missing, something went down between
18:21Keith and Michael DeLuca in the Warlocks Clubhouse in Southwest Philly.
18:33It was tough for me to wrap my mind around what possibly occurred between Mike DeLuca
18:42and Keith Palumbo because, for the simple fact that they were childhood friends, Keith
18:48trusted Mike.
18:50Is it possible that Michael murdered his best friend?
19:00The information that was provided by Buck Evans needed to be verified.
19:07I obtained a search warrant for the Warlocks Clubhouse.
19:14So it's a two-story building.
19:16The clubhouse was on the first floor.
19:19The table in the kitchen was engraved with Warlocks on both sides of it.
19:28There was signage for the club, motorcycle parts, things that would go hand-in-hand with
19:35it being the clubhouse of a motorcycle group.
19:40We were looking for physical evidence of a crime.
19:47All of the carpeting was removed.
19:52We took carpet fibers, and the walls were all painted black, which was weird.
20:00But as you just looked harder and closer through the black paint, you could see the blood spatter.
20:12I've been doing this a long time.
20:14It's very difficult to clean up a bloody crime scene.
20:19Finally, after some deviations with people trying to throw us off, we have key pieces
20:24of evidence that something happened there.
20:28If Keith was killed at the clubhouse, the people who were involved think they're smarter
20:32than the police because we didn't know where Keith was and we didn't have his body.
20:46Shortly after we searched the clubhouse, we had left a police officer on the property
20:54because we were still processing it, and a woman by the name of Donna Morelli, who was
21:00allegedly the leader of the Warlocks, came around and indicated that she was the owner
21:05of the property and wanted to know what was going on.
21:09We learned Donna Morelli was married to the leader of the Warlocks, but that person died,
21:16and Donna Morelli more or less inherited the club.
21:21We were wondering, could Michael DeLuca have shot Keith inside that property?
21:27So I asked her where DeLuca was staying.
21:30Donna told us he was living in the clubhouse, but she had not seen him for several days
21:37and may be somewhere on the West Coast.
21:41So she was giving information, bits and pieces, to make it seem like she was being cooperative,
21:49when in reality I think she felt that we would never locate him if he was on the run from
21:55the police.
22:12Right around this time, Keith's cell phone records came back.
22:17We discovered that before Keith went missing, this cell phone was last pinging in the area
22:23of Mount Moriah Cemetery, the largest cemetery in Pennsylvania, over 200 acres.
22:32Mount Moriah Cemetery is huge.
22:34It's probably three or four city blocks long, deep, and wide.
22:41It's got folks in there from before the Civil War.
22:45It's got Medal of Honor winners in there, dignitaries, celebrities.
22:50Now investigators have to wonder, could Keith Palumbo also be in the cemetery?
22:56And then we learn that Donna Morelli's residence backs up to the cemetery.
23:04It was also brought to our attention that she is a board member for the Friends of Mount
23:10Moriah Cemetery.
23:14So it wasn't lost on us the fact that Donna had access to the entire cemetery, and we
23:21were wondering if Donna could be involved.
23:27Hiding a body in a cemetery is ingenious.
23:31And when you see the number of headstones, crypts, and mausoleums in there, probably
23:35like finding a needle in a haystack.
23:39The task before us was to find a body in a cemetery.
23:44What better way to hide a body than in a cemetery that's supposed to have bodies in it?
24:07It was April 3rd of 2020.
24:10We went looking for evidence of Keith, and I saw how large the cemetery was.
24:16It just appeared to me to be a daunting task.
24:24We probably had 20 to 25 people out there walking around the cemetery looking for any
24:32signs of things that could have been moved or were recently disturbed, or maybe a freshly
24:38dug grave.
24:42When I was walking around, I was overwhelmed.
24:46I didn't think that we would find Keith.
24:50So we were walking around for a very long time.
24:54And then one of the police officers who was with us happened to notice that there was
25:01a very large capstone that looked like it was a little bit off-center, and that there
25:09were what we thought were fresh scratch marks.
25:13So that further aroused our suspicions.
25:17There's cracks in it that just shouldn't be there.
25:23And people started saying, what do you think of that?
25:27According to the monument, the last time that anyone had been buried there was in the year
25:32of 1810.
25:34This was obviously something that needed to be explored.
25:40So we come equipped for this specific task.
25:44We brought our endoscopy camera, and we attached a flashlight to it, and we put it into one
25:49of the cracks.
25:51We were all surprised of what was down there.
25:58We were thinking, is it possible?
26:00Is Keith down there?
26:04We needed to figure out what's inside the actual crypt.
26:12We did not have the capability of moving the stone.
26:16It weighed well in excess of 2,000 pounds.
26:20So we enlisted the help of the Philadelphia Fire Department.
26:27Rescue One came, and they pulled the cover off slowly.
26:38I remember me and Detective Bamborski just looking at each other and like, I can't believe it.
26:43I just can't believe it.
26:46I was shocked that once we pulled that cover back, that it was that big underneath.
26:50It was just a massive structure underneath that you would never be able to fathom just
26:57standing there looking at it from ground level, this massive underground crypt.
27:04Like something out of a movie.
27:06It was approximately 20 feet down to the bottom of the crypt.
27:12This is Dracula meets Sons of Anarchy.
27:17At that point, we had got a ladder, and I went down.
27:22I had never dealt with anything like this in my career.
27:31It was a brick structure that formed a dome, and there were a number of coffins down in
27:38the bottom of it.
27:41One of the investigators, upon closer look, realized there wasn't one, but there were
27:47two fresh bodies.
27:50The one was not identifiable.
27:53It was in a very advanced state of decomposition with a rope wrapped around the neck.
28:00We thought this was the victim of a violent death.
28:06And then we looked at the other body, which we could identify as Keith.
28:15He was still somewhat recognizable by his facial features, and he was still wearing
28:21the guitar pick that his mother had given him around his neck.
28:28We could see that Keith had been shot in the head two times.
28:35There was a blue tarp.
28:38There was all the carpeting.
28:40All the carpet padding looked like it had been removed from the Warlocks' clubhouse,
28:45was also thrown down in the bottom of the crypt.
28:51We thought there was absolutely more than one person involved, and they were trying
28:58to get away with murder.
29:00We did not know who killed Keith Palumbo or what happened to Michael DeLuca.
29:08This is probably one of the more ingenious ways I've seen of getting rid of a body.
29:15When we found Keith, I got a feeling of relief that we could finally give Dottie the closure
29:20that she desperately needed.
29:23It was eight weeks we were looking for him.
29:27Two detectives came to the door.
29:29I wasn't expecting good news, and I said, what happened?
29:33He said he was shot.
29:34As a mom, if you lose a child, you're never going to get over it.
29:40My best friend, my lifelong best friend, my best man at my wedding.
29:51It's like he's gone, you know, like he's not coming back.
29:55It just broke my heart.
29:58It was like the worst possible outcome was Keith was gone.
30:11After we found the two bodies in the cemetery, we were curious as to whether or not members
30:16of the Warlocks were using the cemetery as a dumping ground.
30:21We knew Donna Morelli as the supposed leader of the Warlocks, so we then got a search warrant
30:27for her house.
30:32We found a lot of handguns and then a lot of rifles.
30:39We also confiscated Donna Morelli's red pickup truck, and in the back bed, I found four brown
30:48carpet fibers that had matched the carpet fibers from the crypt and the Warlock clubhouse.
30:57The whole case is adding up.
30:58It's all coming in together.
31:02When we found Keith's body, we knew that it was a murder.
31:08We knew that Keith had been killed in the clubhouse, but we did not know who actually
31:12committed the murder.
31:14But I think everybody was shocked when they realized who was responsible.
31:28Keith Palumbo was missing for two months.
31:31Once we recovered Keith's body, it was classified as a murder.
31:38Now we need to figure out what happened to Keith.
31:42We know that the Warlocks' leader, Donna Morelli's property, backs up to the border
31:48of Mount Moriah Cemetery.
31:51We thought, could she or any members of the Warlocks Motorcycle Club be responsible for
31:56Keith's murder?
31:59We needed to see if we can get somebody to talk about what happened.
32:05I brought Donna Morelli into the homicide unit for questioning.
32:11She admitted that Michael DeLuca and another prospect of the Warlocks, Billy Gibson,
32:20removed Keith's body from the clubhouse, put it in the back of her pickup truck,
32:28and brought it back to her house.
32:30She indicated that she's the one who opened the grave for DeLuca and Billy Gibson.
32:50Did you drive in a truck or did you walk?
32:55Where did you walk to?
32:57Which grave did you walk to?
33:12I asked her, how did she open up a 2,000 pound stone?
33:16And she said, detective, I could move a jersey barrier with a 2x4.
33:47When we questioned Donna Morelli, she gave us a video on her phone.
34:04It clearly shows Michael DeLuca and Billy Gibson pulling up in the back of Donna Morelli's property
34:11in her pickup truck, and although you can't see Keith's body,
34:16you can clearly see the carpet and the padding from the clubhouse of the Warlocks.
34:25We needed to speak with DeLuca and Billy Gibson, but Michael DeLuca was nowhere to be found.
34:31So we got an arrest warrant for Billy Gibson.
34:35When we got back to headquarters, he told us in detail what happened to Keith Palumbo.
34:46Michael DeLuca was known as Chaos, and that was a pretty accurate nickname.
35:05If not, I'll kill you, I'll kill your family, I'll kill your kids, I'll kill everybody.
35:12As a reward for participating in the murder, Billy Gibson said he was then patched in as an official member of the Warlocks.
35:25We knew Buck Evans, he was still incarcerated on the parole issue.
35:29He also pointed the finger at Michael DeLuca, and was probably also involved in the murder.
35:37We now had to go back to Buck Evans.
36:00I'm out there right where it says the Duke to me.
36:05Each one of those witnesses was telling the story in a way that minimized their own involvement,
36:11which is not something unusual at all.
36:15Mike DeLuca was not around to be able to defend himself. We were unable to locate him at that time.
36:22We immediately set wheels in motion to locate and arrest Michael DeLuca.
36:28Coincidentally, we learned Michael DeLuca was pulled over by the police in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
36:37The police found a loaded firearm in Michael DeLuca's vehicle, and he was subsequently arrested.
36:45Buck Evans, Billy Gibson, and Donna Morelli, they're all pointing the finger at Michael DeLuca.
36:50The consistencies amongst each one of their stories of what happened
36:55showed that they were telling the truth about Keith's murder.
37:21We believe on the night that Keith was killed, he had his mother's car.
37:26At some point, he meets up with club members, Buck Evans and Billy Gibson.
37:30They go to the clubhouse.
37:32DeLuca came out with the firearm.
37:38And with no provocation, shot Keith in the face two times.
37:45He was shot in the head, and he was shot in the back.
37:50He was shot in the head, and he was shot in the back.
37:54He was shot in the head, and he was shot in the back.
37:57With no provocation, shot Keith in the face two times.
38:12After Keith was dumped in the crypt, DeLuca instructed Evans and Gibson to go up to the Kensington area.
38:27And dumped Keith's mother's car.
38:30And then they all returned as if nothing had ever happened.
38:38Michael murdered his best friend for selfish reasons.
38:42He believed that Keith Palumbo was a snitch.
38:44He is a twisted individual.
38:47Michael DeLuca pled guilty to third-degree murder.
38:51Consecutive to that 10-year sentence for the Wyoming case was a 15 to 35-year sentence in Pennsylvania.
39:08Buck Evans and Billy Gibson each pled guilty to obstruction of justice.
39:13And each pled guilty to obstruction of justice, hindering, and related charges to the disposal of Keith's body.
39:21We learned the other body found inside that crypt was David Rosillo.
39:27He was a prospect to the warlocks.
39:29He was shot and killed by a warlock named Michael DeMoro.
39:33Either late December of 2017 or very early in 2018.
39:44For the David Rosillo case, we relied heavily on the testimony of Donna Morelli.
39:50And she was given immunity for her role in that murder.
39:54With regards to Keith's murder, she was sentenced to 11 and a half to 23 months.
39:59Followed by a period of probation.
40:02I've never seen anybody go to this length to dispose of a body and conceal the body.
40:11And quite frankly, it worked.
40:14I don't think that anybody would have ever found Keith had it not been for the fact that a police officer saw the way that the capstone had been moved.
40:27We were able to lay Keith to rest.
40:30Which we were so happy that we were able to do that.
40:41When I think of what Keith thought that night, when he saw what he was going to do,
40:48I can't imagine what he was thinking.
40:52Because it was his best friend pointing the gun in his face.
41:02The case was a true whodunit mystery.
41:05It was a case that was never going to be solved.
41:08It was a case that was never going to be solved.
41:12The case was a true whodunit mystery.
41:15An individual was burned in two barrels.
41:19It was just very cold, very calculated.
41:22Whoever did this, they had a plan.
41:24It was definitely one of those cases where I thought, maybe we've met our match.