"You're the confession guy, aren't you?" attorney David Hoose asked state police trooper Michael Mazza.
Attorney David P. Hoose (left) stands with his client, Anthony P. Baye, during an appearance in Hampshire Superior Court in December.NORTHAMPTON - Investigators who interrogated Anthony P. Baye about the Dec. 27, 2009, fires that terrorized Northampton were chosen specially to get a confession from him, Baye's defense team suggested Thursday,
In his cross examination of state police trooper Michael Mazza in Hampshire Superior Court, co-counsel David P. Hoose asked if he and state police Sgt. Paul Zipper were selected to interview Baye on Jan. 4, 2010.
"You're the confession guy, aren't you?" Hoose asked Mazza. "At that point, you're goal is to get a confession."
Hoose and co-counsel Thomas Lesser want to suppress the interview, saying that Baye was denied his right to a lawyer. They also want to exclude evidence gathered by police on the night of the fires. Judge Constance Sweeney will determine whether or not the evidence can be presented at trial.
Mazza and Zipper questioned Baye for about ten hours, ultimately getting him to initial locations on a map of Northampton where he admitted setting fires.
Earlier Thursday, Baye was seen in the video of the interview telling police that when he looks back on the events of Dec. 27, 2009, his actions seem to be that of a
different person.
"It's like it's somebody else," he tells state police fire investigator Michael Mazza and state police Sgt. Paul Zipper.
Baye's ruminations take place after he initials the map. In the ensuing down time, the investigators are seen trying to puzzle out his motives.
Baye told his interviewers that he did not act out of anger and was not abused as a child. He did not stay to watch and of the fires, he said. However, he told the officers he suffers inexplicable bouts of anxiety that cause his hands and feet to sweat. He told of sweating through his clothes in middle school during such episodes.
"I always wanted to find an answer to that," he says.
When he woke up on the morning after the fires, Baye said he asked himself how he could have done the deeds of the previous night.
"What was I doing last night?" he recalled thinking, "Like, why would I do that?"
Police stopped Baye twice on the night of the fires while he was driving in the vicinity. They observed that he was wet and smelled of alcohol. It was raining hard that night. Baye told investigators he had 13 beedrs. The defense maintains that the officers lacked probable cause to stop and question Baye.
Baye also contends that he was denied his right to a lawyer during the Jan. 4 interview, in which he admits that the fire at 17 Fair St. was a mistake. That fire took the lives of Paul Yeskie, 81, and his son, Paul Yeskie, Jr., 39. Although investigators assure Baye several times that he could have a lawyer, they persuade him that it would be in his interest to continue speaking with them.
At one point, Baye attributes his actions on the fatal night to alcohol.
"It must have been the booze," he tells his interrogators.
Police questioned Baye for hours during the interview. Although he conceded to them that the Fair Street fire was an accident, he subsequently denied any memory of setting it. Baye said he "kind of" remembered a box on the porch of the house where Mazza suggested the Fair Street fire started.
"Maybe, vividly there was a box," he said.
Baye also denied setting previous fires in the area. The neighborhood had been besieged by suspicious blazes for several years prior to the rash of blazes on Dec. 27, 2009. Mazza tells Baye he suspects him of setting one on Hawley Street, but Baye says he knew nothing about it.
At one point, Zipper tells Baye that investigators have spoken with some of his friends and believe he has a history of lighting fires. He mentions one fire near a dike in Northampton that Baye's friends cited. Baye dismissed it as "stupid kid stuff."
Baye, 26, faces two counts of first degree murder and some 40 other crimes in connection with 15 separate fires set that night. In an effort to get Baye to talk, his interrogators repeatedly assured him they did not believe he intended to hurt anyone. Mazza told Baye that the Yeskies died because they had modified the house so that the front door was their only exit.
"They couldn't get out of there on a good day, let alone a bad day," he said.
Mazza also said the Yeskies were hoarders and that their debris contributed to the fire's quick spread. Mutual aid from Amherst did not arrive at Fair Street for 15 minutes, a time gap Mazza called "inexcusable."
The nearly ten-hour interrogation ends with Baye's arrest. Mazza explains to him that he will be arraigned in Northampton District Court and later indicted in superior court.