Quintessential Delaware - The stories you'd rather forget

By Elizabeth Scheinberg

This week's made gridlock across much New Castle Country due to what is affectionately being called "Pennies from Heaven" has prompted a review of Delaware's most morbid newsworthy events for the last twenty years. If we miss any, please add in the comments.

1. Jack Markell. Need we say more?

2. The Capanos. Delaware's answer to the mafia. Yes, yes we did. For all of our out-of-staters and those millennials far too young to understand the Capano Dynasty. It all began in 1947 when an Italian immigrant, a carpenter, stated a small homebuilding company in New Castle County and especially in the sleepy suburbs of Wilmington. Louis Capano Sr grew to be one of the most respected custom home builders in the state as well as one of our most respected citizens. His early death in 1980 surprised many and the family business transferred into the hands of his prodigy son, Louis Jr. Louis had three brothers, Thomas, Joseph and Gerry, Delaware royalty who've found themselves stripped of their crowns. Tom went from promising lawyer and politician to murderer when he killed his then-girlfriend and enlisted drug-addicted gun-owning, felon, brother Gerry to dump her body at sea in a small strip of water known as Maco Alley. (A moment of respect for the deceased, we still mourn you and your family.) To boot, he dumped his bloodstained furniture in brother Joe's construction dumpsters and picked up new carpeting from Airbase Carpet Mart in his effort to hide his crime. It all would eventually unravel, culminating with two trials and Tom's eventual death in Delaware prison cell. (Respectful pause for the daughters he left behind and his sister Marion, who has kept herself and her family above the fray.)

Hotel Hell: If you thought the loss of Tom or horror of his crimes would lead the Capano brothers into some quiet obscurity, you thought wrong. It took 10 years and four owners, but in 2011 the Sheraton Wilmington South along 141 and 195 finally opened to customers. The land use battle all began when Tom's brother Joe Sr, who in 2000, completed his Radisson Hotel but couldn't get Certificate of Occupancy because the hotel was 50,000 feet larger than the county approved plans. Some called for blowing expanding foam into the top two floors of the hotel to permanently prevent those guest rooms from ever being used. It didn't happen. Instead, Capano's company defaulted the loan to its Florida-based bank. The bank sold it to the same folks who own Delaware Park, Parkside. Capano filed suit that the county had violated his firm's Civil Rights. Counter suits. More counter suits. Judgements that almost landed Joe a cool 2 mil were finally overturned by the Delaware Supreme Court. In 2010, Parkside finally received a certificate to open and three months later sold the hotel to the Hersha group out of Philly. And we didn't even touch on how the hotel was built in a floodplain.
Joseph M. Capano. Tom's brother. Developer. Family man. Wealthy. With a past that included kidnapping and rape charges that were eventually pled down misdemeanors. When Joe passed away in 2015, he was in the midst of battle with brother Louis over the company that his father had built.
And just this month, the law finally caught up with Joe Sr., another Capano relative, who as the developer for the Riverbend Community (in yet another floodplain, dumpsters and floodplains, we love 'em in Delaware) was sentenced to 21 months plus a year of home confinement when he pled guilty to the 1 count of violating the Clean Water Act and 1 count of bank fraud.

3. Brian Peterson and Amy Grossberg. Newsweek once described the New Jersey college co-eds as "...Perfect teens. Then she got pregnant, they got scared - and the baby ended up dead." With a nod to our millennials, you're probably wondering about the connection with Delaware? The University of Delaware,of course, which spent weeks at the epicenter of the murder of Baby Grossberg after the freshman and her boyfriend birthed the child in a local motel and then tossed her out in a dumpster. (Two dumpster stories in a row, youda thunk Delaware really gigs on its trash conveyors.) Two two-year prison terms later, and a good twenty years, Brian was last seen in Florida working for his step-father and Amy was rumored to have started her own greeting card line sold at high end shops in New York. Millennials - this is directed entirely at you - if you eventually have children and are lucky enough to have one of each traditional gender - do NOT name one Brian and the other Amy. Fight the compulsion!

4. Newarker Eaten by Pet Lizards in Towne Court. Aside from the fact Towne Court is no longer Towne Court- although it will always be Town Court - likely in part due to this legacy story - these lizards were not your average pet Artemis. (My husband had small lizard once, he named her Artemis. H/T to hubby.) Ron leased a small studio apartment in Towne Court, but his seven, yes, seven, monitor lizards had the run of it, along with aquariums and smaller reptiles. But, it all came to a grisly end when Newark Police found Huff's already dead body being malled by his cold-blooded pets.

5. Bees. Did you know that the state actually has a disaster plan for bees? They have a team of Apiarist ready to be dispatched at a moments notice which was particularly helpful when a truck loaded with bees in hives overturned at 896 and I95. For days Delawareans were advised to keep their windows closed when driving on the interstate and residents in the corridor were advised to stay inside and be vigilant if you did go outside. Swarms of bees travelled up the interstate to the sandbox by 141in search of queens, many who had perished in the accident. Fortunately, bees can't function without a queen and after about a week, a handful of bees had joined local hives but most perished.

6. And now, the Pennies from Heaven or rather a nuclear bomb laden with unminted copper. Who knew that an overturned tractor trailer carrying unstamped pennies could tie up Delaware's roads for nearly a full day? The pain was felt as far south as Dover. There's definately a lot we could learn from this. Just think, Delaware's population is not even a million, yet, and the half the state was literally parked on the roadways. Imagine what would happen if Delaware had to do a full evacuation?

Math lesson: Kavips, this one is for you. If any one can solve the following word problem, it's you!

And, no,this is not common core, it's far more relevant. There are 454 grams of copper in a lb. There are 2.95 grams of copy in a penny. What is the market value of the copper in the penny today?

Hint:
So it happens that when the price of copper is $1.54 per pound, the value of the copper in a penny is nearly equal to one cent.

We are looking for the market value of the copper in a penny. At today's exchange rates 1 lb of copper is selling at $2.1329. Thus the market value of the penny is ____________.

Although all are welcome to share their best answer in the comments section.

That's our top 6. Have a Great Week!

Category: 0 comments