Murder Suspect Began 'Wailing and Crying' Upon Learning of His Friend's Death

WOBURN -- After learning her father, Stephen Rakes, been found dead in a wooded area in Lincoln on July 17, 2013, Meredith Rakes said she immediately called her father's best friend and business partner, William J. Camuti.

"I asked him if he had heard, then I told him my father had been found dead,'' Meredith Rakes, of Quincy, testified Monday at Camuti's murder trial in Middlesex Superior Court.

"He started wailing and crying, saying, 'That was my best friend,' over and over again, '' she testified as the 72-year-old Camuti sat at the defendant's table charged with first-degree murder in the 2013 poisoning death of 59-year-old Rakes, of South Boston.

Prosecutor Adrienne Lynch alleges that Camuti killed Rakes by lacing his iced coffee with a lethal dose of cyanide to avoid repaying a mounting debt of more than $100,000. Investigators point out that Camuti, the former owner of Loan Depot in the 1990's, has a track record that includes being convicted by a federal jury in 1993 on 11 counts of mail fraud.

In questioning Camuti about Rakes' murder, State Police allege that Camuti initially gave conflicting stories about what happened that day. Investigators confronted Camuti with taped conversations Rakes made of his phone calls with Camuti. In one of those taped phone calls, Camuti allegedly asks for the meeting in Waltham with the promise that a check would be forthcoming, The Globe reports.

As Camuti became a strong suspect in the murder, police responded to his Sudbury home on July 20, 2013 after he cut his wrists in an alleged suicide attempt. In the hospital, Camuti allegedly told police he put the poison in a film container and then poured some in Rake's iced coffee.

But defense attorney Brad Bailey told the jury during his opening that there are no witnesses and no DNA evidence that links Camuti to the murder, The Globe reports. As for the alleged hospital confession, Bailey maintains Camuti was in shock after losing so much blood.

Bailey acknowledged Camuti's ongoing financial problems, but he was working with Rakes on real estate deals, he had been working to "shop around'' a movie based on Rakes' life story, and he was working with Rakes to "sell'' a multi-million settlement he received from mobster James "Whitey'' Bugler's case.

Lynch told the jury that on the day of his death, Rakes was at the federal courthouse hoping to testify against Bugler for stealing Rakes' South Boston liquor store decades earlier. But on July 16, 2013, Rakes was told he wouldn't be called as a witness against Bulger.

Rakes left the courthouse that day and drove to the McDonald's in Waltham to meet Camuti to discuss a business opportunity in Wilmington. Camuti gave his friend an iced coffee. Lynch described the meeting as "a trap.''

Before meeting Rakes, Camuti allegedly bought latex gloves and stopped at his rented storage unit in Waltham. In a search of Camuti's computer, investigators found two emails in which he had inquired about the price of potassium cyanide, The Globe reports. And Camuti's GPS records on his vehicle showed his vehicle was near the woods where Rakes' body was found, according to The Globe.

Rakes, a retired MBTA worker who dabbled in real estate, got into Camuti's car at about 1:40 p.m. and began drinking his iced coffee, Lynch said. The pair drove around for hours, making stops in Woburn, Burlington and passing a wooded area off Route 2A in Lincoln where Rakes' body would be found the next day by a jogger.

Initially there were no obvious signs of foul play, Trooper Patrick Moynihan, of Crime Scene Services, testified.

But Moynihan said he found what appeared to be drag marks from the road to where the body was discovered. Moynihan testified he found mud on the heels of Rakes' sneakers and crumpled leaves were placed under Rakes' head.

With those signs, Rakes' death became a "suspicious death" instead of an "unintended death," Moynihan said.

Since there was no ID or cell phone found on the body, Moynihan took the dead man's fingerprints. The fingerprints matched those of Stephen Rakes, he testified.

Photo of William J. Camuti by Lisa Redmond/lisa.redmond@patch.com. Courtesy photo of Stephen Rakes.