THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, August 27, 1996 TAG: 9608270266
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MIKE MATHER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 56 lines
Eddie Makdessi, the Virginia Beach man who says a Navy conspiracy led to his wife's murder in May, told police Sunday he was shot near Lowell, Mass., by unknown suspects who also ran him off the road and firebombed his car.
Monday, however, Massachusetts authorities said they are not sure whether to believe Makdessi.
Jill Reilly, a spokeswoman for the Middlesex County District Attorney's Office in Massachusetts, said no bullets penetrated Makdessi's skin, despite his claim that he was shot three times. ``Police are skeptical of his story,'' Reilly said.
Reilly declined to discuss the case further because it is still under investigation.
There were no witnesses to the attack, authorities said. Makdessi could not be reached for comment.
Police and rescue workers found Makdessi in the median of a road Sunday in Tyngsboro, Mass., with his bullet-pierced Cadillac ablaze nearby. He was not seriously hurt and left a hospital hours later.
Virginia Beach detectives are investigating whether Eddie Makdessi staged his wife's murder to make her appear to be the victim of a conspiracy. Eddie, however, has steadfastly claimed innocence since his wife's slaying May 14. He says his wife was killed by a Navy co-worker to silence her complaints of rape and sexual harassment.
Eddie says he and his wife, Elise, were attacked in their apartment on Lake Front Circle by an intruder who tied up Eddie, then raped and stabbed Elise Makdessi. Eddie said he broke free and fatally shot the intruder, who was later identified as a Navy co-worker named in Elise's private notes as her rapist.
Police have confiscated a videotape, recorded secretly by his wife, that backs up Eddie's story. In the videotape, Elise Makdessi details two rapes and episodes of sexual harassment at Oceana Naval Air Station, where she worked as an air traffic controller.
On the tape, Elise Makdessi said her complaints to her superiors were brushed off and she was preparing to go public with her story. She said she had been threatened by her co-workers and was making the tape in case she was killed.
She was murdered shortly thereafter.
At first, police cleared Eddie Makdessi in his wife's murder. Later, they turned their suspicions back to him after hundreds of interviews failed to find anyone who substantiated the charges Elise Makdessi recorded on the videotape. No written complaint was ever located and her closest friends could not corroborate those charges, investigators have said.
But during that investigation by Virginia Beach detectives and Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents, nothing other than speculation has linked Eddie Makdessi to his wife's murder.
He has said police are investigating him because they are helping the Navy cover up the crimes his wife detailed. The murder of Elise Makdessi is still unsolved.
KEYWORDS: MURDER INVESTIGATION by CNB