Opinion ID: 783527
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Dallio Admits Murdering Loni Berglund

Text: 3 On January 10, 1986, in an apartment in Forest Hills, Queens, a young woman named Loni Berglund was killed by one gunshot wound to her chest and three to her head in the course of a robbery that netted its perpetrator fifty dollars. For more than five years, the crime went unsolved when, in May 1991, new computer technology matched fingerprints lifted from the murder scene to those of petitioner Thomas Dallio. 4 On October 15, 1991, two New York City police detectives, Timothy Copeland and Raymond Pierce, interviewed Dallio, who was then incarcerated on a 1988 New York State robbery conviction. After waiving his Miranda rights, Dallio agreed to speak with the officers and, over the course of several hours, made a series of inculpatory audiotaped and videotaped statements. For example, in a 12:30 p.m. statement apparently addressed to Ms. Berglund's mother, Dallio said: 5 I'm very sorry what happened to Loni. She was a beautiful person who reached out to me.... We were in the apartment.... She said um it's getting late. I thought about going back out there into the street with no money, no drugs, no place to stay. So I pulled out the gun and I asked her to sit on the couch and I asked her where the money was. She couldn't believe, she couldn't believe that I was serious. She says is this for real ... she said she didn't have any money. Then she got up like she was goin' for the door. She was goin' for the alarm and I fired first one time. She said something, she said okay, okay. I don't know, I just fired again and again and again.... I know that I can't bring her back. But I'm sorry an[d] I hope that you will forgive me, just like I ask God to forgive me. 6 Oct. 15, 1991 Tape Trans. at 13-14. 7 Approximately six months later, on April 8, 1992, Dallio volunteered further inculpatory statements. While being transported from prison to a police station where he would formally be charged with Ms. Berglund's murder, Dallio asked Detective Copeland about the likelihood of capital punishment in his case. When Copeland replied that petitioner could receive the death penalty, Dallio stated, I killed her in a drug-crazed state. I didn't mean to do it. I think I should get manslaughter not murder. June 10, 1993 Hearing Trans. at 44. He further stated that his prior confession had been for the benefit of the victim's mother, nobody else, and that but for his confession and the prints, the police would have no case against him. Id. at 45. 8