Newsday april 29th, 2003

Silence Deepens Mystery / Witness seeking immunity;
Melanie Lefkowitz. STAFF WRITER. Newsday. N.Y.: Apr 29, 2003. pg. A.07
Full Text (1255 words)
(Copyright Newsday Inc., 2003) [Table]
Quotes: 'It's part of something we need to get behind us.' - Mark

O'Brien, father of Burke

Whatever he knows, he's not telling.

Forrest Bloede, the young advertising man who watched as his college buddy was shot and killed in front of a Lower East Side building on a cold January morning, says he wants to work with police to track down the killer. More than three months later, though, detectives say they are still waiting for Bloede's help - assistance that has been held up by his request for immunity from prosecution.

The victim, Burke O'Brien, 25, described by friends and family as an outdoorsman, athlete and mentor to teens who was poised for success, was blasted in the chest as he and Bloede, his former fraternity brother, returned to Bloede's Orchard Street apartment from a late night out.

Police initially arrested Bloede, 24, whose account of the shooting had discrepancies, and charged him with murder. He was released 12 hours later when the Manhattan district attorney's office declined to prosecute because there was no apparent motive or sufficient evidence.

"It's part of something we need to get behind us," said O'Brien's father, Mark, 53, an options trader who lives in a Chicago suburb. "We've had a horrible time; it's a horrible thing.

"How has it affected our family? It's been like a cancer. Over a thousand people have reached out to us - that's been great. Except for the one person we need."

Detectives now theorize that O'Brien may have been shot by two local men during a botched robbery attempt, but they have had difficulty proceeding without Bloede's aid. He has yet to provide a description to a sketch artist, look at an array of photos police have assembled, or account for a possible disturbance outside his apartment in the days before O'Brien's death, sources said.

Bloede's lawyer, Glenn Wolther, said he recently sent a six-page letter to Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, "indicating our eagerness and willingness for Forrest to cooperate" but received what he described only as a "terse" one-paragraph reply.

"They're not willing to so much as say they're sorry," Wolther said yesterday. "The danger is that he's already been falsely arrested and falsely charged with murder once, and it's unclear how he can trust them."

Bloede, who has moved from Orchard Street but remains in the city, is trying to get on with his life, his attorney said.

"Months and months have passed, and they appear to have done little, yet he sits there eager to cooperate," Wolther said. "It's a tragedy for the O'Briens."

Barbara Thompson, a spokeswoman for Morgenthau, said the probe into O'Brien's death is an "active, active investigation." She declined further comment. A police official said the NYPD's investigation is also active, adding that "detectives would welcome any information that could be helpful." Anyone with information is asked to call 800-577-TIPS.

The circumstances of the shooting in the gentrifying neighborhood were murky from the start.

Investigators at first suspected a rivalry over a woman, but it turned out there was no such conflict. The .45-caliber handgun used to kill O'Brien has not been found.

Two bystanders who heard but didn't see the shooting said the only person they saw fleeing the scene was Bloede. A third witness came forward a day later, an attorney who said she had been drinking. She recalled seeing two other men on the street, bolstering Bloede's account of a robbery attempt by two dark- skinned men.

In the weeks after Bloede's release, police circulated fliers seeking information about the men described by Bloede.

Police say they no longer consider Bloede a suspect but have not ruled anything out. O'Brien's sister, Raurie, remembers her brother mentioning a fight outside Bloede's apartment in the days before Jan. 12 but the family has not been able to learn any more about it.

Bloede, who works at a prominent Manhattan advertising firm, and O'Brien, who was ready to start his first job in finance at Bank of America after traveling the world, teaching in Ecuador and leading wilderness canoe trips through the northern reaches of Canada, were members of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter of Colorado State University. Both graduated with business majors in 2001.

It seemed natural that on one of his many visits to New York, O'Brien would stay at Bloede's.

"Burke had been coming up to New York City for four months or so - pretty regularly, every other weekend, to do interviews," said Raurie O'Brien, who was out with Bloede and Burke the night he died. "So instead of staying with the same person every single time and wearing out his welcome, every time he would come he would stay with someone different. He was friends with Forrest."

A party of five went out that night to see a band called M-Lab at the Elbow Room. They ended up at a restaurant around the corner and split into two cabs to return to Bloede's apartment around 4 a.m. Raurie and two friends rode in one, and Burke and Bloede followed in the other. The two men didn't have enough cash to pay the fare, however, so they stopped at an ATM down the street and withdrew $20 before walking together to Bloede's building.

"It was just a very upbeat, music, dancing, friends kind of a night," recalled Raurie, who, like all of Burke's surviving siblings, moved back home after his death.

Just moments after Raurie and her group returned to the Orchard Street apartment, Bloede ran in screaming for a phone. She rushed out into the street where Burke was lying. Raurie tried to perform CPR on him while they waited for the ambulance.

When Raurie went with her brother to the hospital, Bloede went with the police.

"As far as I was concerned, none of it made sense," said Raurie, whose only impression of Bloede before the shooting was as a fun- loving friend of her brother.

"With respect to the notion of Forrest having done it, none of the things that were happening were in the scheme of reality I knew. As far as I was concerned, everything was possible."

Nothing Certain Beyond His Death

Key dates in the probe of Burke O'Brien's slaying:

Jan. 12.

O'Brien, 25, a graduate of Colorado State University who was to begin work at the Bank of America, is shot on the Lower East Side. Police say he is killed in front of a six-story walkup on Orchard Street after a night out with friends.

Jan. 13

O'Brien's friend Forrest Bloede is arrested after a witness reports he saw two men arguing. Bloede says his friend was shot after they withdrew cash from an ATM and two men accosted them. Police later release Bloede.

Jan. 20

A week later, police say Bloede is no longer considered a suspect, with no credible motive apparent, and witness accounts now seeming to support the robbery story.

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