The Electrician Executioner

East Hampton sits at the eastern tip of Long Island in Suffolk County, New York, about two hours from Manhattan, and in 2001 it was a village of vast summer estates owned by investment bankers and celebrities. Among the wealthy part-time residents was Robert Theodore Ammon, known as Ted, a tall, athletic and relentless investment banker who had made a fortune in the 1980s. Ted was born on 30 August 1949 at Allegheny General Hospital on the north side of Pittsburgh. details of the account remain covered until revealed Ted swam and played football, was popular at school, and studied economics at Bucknell University. He never attended law school, but he passed the bar examinations in both the United States and England, then worked at a few law firms before joining the investment bank Kohlberg Kravis Roberts in 1979. By 1983 he was one of the youngest partners in the firm's history, and he took part in the $38 billion RJR Nabisco buyout. He was married at the time to Randy Day; the marriage, which began in the early 1970s, ended amicably around 1980. In 1983 Ted arranged to see an apartment through a rental agent named Generosa Rand. He forgot the appointment, and the next morning she telephoned his office to tell him off. He was charmed by her temper and asked her to dinner to apologise. Generosa was born on 22 March 1956. Her mother, a church secretary, had a week-long affair with an Italian sailor named Generoso, and gave the baby his name but her husband's surname. She died of cancer when Generosa was ten, and Generosa and her sister were passed to an aunt and uncle in Emerald Bay, California, then to a foster home. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it Ted and Generosa married in February 1986 and lived first on Fifth Avenue at 75th Street, then in a townhouse on East 92nd Street. Ted's career flourished and by the late 1980s the couple were worth more than $50 million. They bought an English manor house in Surrey called Coverwood and filled it and their New York homes with art. They struggled for years to conceive. In 1992, after fertility treatment failed, Generosa saw a photograph of two orphaned Ukrainian toddlers in her doctor's office and the couple adopted the twins Gregory and Alexa from the village of Medvedisti in the Mukachivo region. That same year they paid $2.7 million for a low house at Middle Lane in East Hampton and set about rebuilding it as a two-storey English-style manor. In 1992 Ted also left Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and started his own firm; he bought a company that made newspaper advertising inserts, renamed it Big Flower Press, built it up and sold it in 1999, when it had nearly $2 billion in annual revenues. He gave Bucknell University $15 million in 1996 and became chairman of Jazz at Lincoln Center. The marriage deteriorated. Friends described Generosa as volatile, quick to cut people off and difficult with the architects and gardeners working on the house. Ted told friends that living with her was like walking on eggshells. By 2000, with Ted spending weekdays in New York and weekends in England, Generosa hired private investigators, came to believe he was having an affair with a blonde investment banker and in the summer of 2000 returned from England to begin divorce proceedings. The divorce was bitter. She claimed he was worth $300 million and demanded $150 million; his lawyers said he was worth rather less, much of it tied up in shares of the internet advertising firm 24/7 Media, whose value collapsed in the spring of 2000. Ted bought a $9 million townhouse at East 87th Street for her and moved into an apartment at Fifth Avenue. this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed He moved into her suite at the Stanhope Hotel, and by 2001 he was living with her and spending Ted's money. He knew the house at Middle Lane, its alarms and the hidden Rapid Eye video system, because he had helped install it. On Saturday 20 October 2001 Ted drove out to East Hampton in his silver Porsche for the weekend. He was due to collect the children on the Monday and missed a business meeting, which was unusual enough to worry his partner Mark Angelson. On Monday 22 October Angelson and Ted's chauffeur flew to East Hampton Airport, reached the house at Middle Lane before five o'clock and found the dogs unsettled and a trail of blood on the stairs. Ted was in the master bedroom, naked, covered in blood and beaten beyond recognition. He had been stunned with a stun gun and struck about thirty-five times with a bat or a heavy torch. The murder weapons were gone, along with the sheets, his underwear and the hard drive of the hidden camera system, which had been switched off. The killing made international news. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it In November a reporter asked him whether he had killed Ted Ammon and he answered, 'Call my lawyer.' Ted had never revised his 1995 will. Because the divorce was not final, his entire estate, valued at $81.4 million, passed to Generosa. this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed With Generosa gone, witnesses began to talk. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now Perino admitted disposing of a bloodstained leather jacket. details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now He has always denied the killing, later claiming that Generosa arranged it and that Chris Perino carried it out. details of the account remain covered until revealed The estate won a $46.7 million wrongful death judgment, and the twins eventually sold the East Hampton house for $8.35 million.