Monday, December 5, 2022

The Tenerelli Files

The Sportsman Motel

 Back in 2019 I received a cache of documents from a relative of Filippo Tenerelli. I was asked to look at the material and see if it would sway my opinion as to whether or not Filippo was murdered.  I did not believe that Filippo was murdered even after reading the documents. I let the conversation drop because I did not want to argue the point with the Tenerelli family. I'm sure it must be very difficult for a family to come to terms with the idea that a member of their family took their own life, particularly a religious family that was taught that a person who commits suicide cannot be buried in consecrated ground. 

In 2007 Paul Dostie and his cadaver sniffing dog Buster led a team of other cadaver dogs and their handlers on a search of Barker Ranch for possible bodies buried by members of the Manson Family. White Rabbitt was the informant who claimed that bodies were buried at Barker. As we know, there were no bodies found even though the dogs did pick up the scent of remains.

This search seems to have kicked off a re-investigation of Tenerelli's death in 2008. Tom O'Neill appears to have been the catalyst for this investigation by virtue of having requested any and all documents and materials related to the initial investigation beginning in 2007. The documents had to be retrieved from storage so they gave it another look-see. In the end the Bishop Police Department did not believe that Tenerelli was murdered and that his death was the result of suicide.

The Tenerelli family was not informed of this re-investigation, not by the Bishop Police Department nor by Tom O'Neill. They learned of it eight years later. In 2016 the Tenerelli family member made a request to the Bishop Police Department for any and all documents and materials related to Tenerelli's death as well as any communications that Tom O'Neill had with the department. There is a complete list of everything requested by the Tenerelli family member at the beginning of the first pdf.

I dislike redacting anything from the documents I provide but, in this instance, I felt it prudent to redact the Tenerelli family member's name and address as well as Tom O'Neill's phone number and address. I did not redact his name, he's a public figure at this point whereas the Tenerelli family is not.

There are a couple of reports that are nearly impossible to read in the first two pdf's. One report begins on page 15 and continues to page 18. The second report is on pages 30 and 31. Copies of both of these reports were in the material I recently obtained and they are easier to read than what is in these pdf's so I'm attaching a seventh pdf with just those reports.

pdf pages 1-25