Article on UFF/Tom Manning/Richard Williams

A routine stop, a ruthless act, a legacy forever

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

BY MIKE FRASSINELLI

Star-Ledger Staff

Heading west on Route 80 in Warren County, just past a massive concrete viaduct not far from the state border, is one of the most ma jestic vistas in New Jersey.

To the left, the Delaware River flows freely. Watching over it are swooping bald eagles and a craggy, tree-covered mountaintop.

This picture-postcard scene is also where one of the darkest days for New Jersey law enforcement unfolded.

Here, during a routine traffic stop on the afternoon of Dec. 21, 1981, state trooper Philip J. Lamo naco was gunned down by two members of the United Freedom Front, an anti-government group that plotted bank robberies and municipal building bombings.

"He was one of the best," said David Gallant, a friend and former State Police colleague who was part of the 10-person unit that eventually collared the killers, Thomas Manning and Richard Williams, after a 3 1/2-year manhunt.

"And he gave his life for the citizens of New Jersey."

Tomorrow, the 25th anniversary of Lamonaco's death, a granite monument will be unveiled at mile marker 3.6, the spot where the shooting took place. It will be dedicated at 1 p.m. and unveiled at exactly 4:17 p.m., the time Lamonaco was shot.

Like the roadway itself, a once- desolate stretch of rural highway that today is choked with Pennsylvania commuters, New Jersey law enforcement has changed since that first day of winter in 1981.

Now, before state troopers approach a car when making a stop, they are required to call it in. And troopers today carry rapid-fire 9 mm sidearms instead of the 6-shot revolver Lamonaco had when he was outgunned.

ONE LAST STOP

On the first day of winter 1981, the shortest day of the year, darkness was already falling by 4 p.m.

Philip Lamonaco, a strapping 32-year-old state trooper whose instincts on traffic stops in rural Warren County made him the New Jersey Trooper of the Year in 1979, wanted to make just one more swoop on Route 80.

He knew the spaghetti with gravy -- his family's Italian-American term for sauce -- would be waiting when he got home. He didn't know his wife, Donna, and their three young children planned to surprise him with homemade Christmas cookies.

Trooper No. 2663 was to begin his holiday vacation the next day, and nobody at the station would have faulted him for coasting the rest of his shift.

But there he was around 4 p.m., pulling over a 1977 Chevy Nova with Connecticut plates for speeding at Route 80 mile marker 3.6.

He asked the driver for his license. Out came a fake one, for a Barry A. Eastbury.

Then the trooper saw the gun.

During a struggle and gunfight with the driver and a passenger, Lamonaco was shot in a knee, the left ring finger and the left arm. Another bullet found its way around the side of his protective vest into his heart. He was hit nine times in all, including three shots in the back of the head as he lay on the ground.

The Nova marked with blood and bullet holes peeled off.

The trooper was lying with his face in the snow when a passing motorist stopped and pushed the button on Lamonaco's police radio to report an officer down.

TWO WORLDS COLLIDE

In Tom Manning's America, too many people worked day and night and got the short end of capitalism.

Manning, a native of Boston, fought in Vietnam in 1965-66. Al most immediately after returning home, he went to prison for armed robbery.

There, he noted in his biography, "I first read Che," referring to Argentine-born Marxist revolutionary Che Guevera. Manning came to believe the only system in which ends could meet for people, and not just bosses, was socialism.

His United Freedom Front group aimed to overthrow the government through bank robberies and bombings. The ex-con soon became known to law enforcement and people who study post office bulletin boards as one of the FBI's Most Wanted.

The revolutionary and the state trooper who collided on Route 80 25 years ago were both Vietnam vets and married fathers of three in their 30s, who grew up in hard- working ethnic families in the Northeast.

But where Lamonaco's America was a land of possibility, Manning's was a land of tyranny.

After the shootout, police said, Manning and Williams headed to the nearby village of Hainesburg in Knowlton Township, and then disappeared.

The hunt for the killers was like something out of a spy novel, and it took Gallant and the rest of his unit to Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania and finally Ohio, where surveillance on a mail drop helped snare Williams on his 37th birthday in November 1984.

Manning was arrested in Virginia in April 1985.

"Sure, it was personal," said Gallant, who thought of Lamonaco as an older brother.

The captured fugitives were convicted in Somerville -- Williams on the second go-around after a hung jury. He was represented by Lynne Stewart, who last year was convicted of providing material support to Sheik Omar Abdel-Rah man, the blind cleric who helped mastermind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Williams died in prison last year at age 58, prompting Donna Lamo naco to tell reporters, "One down."

Manning, 60, is behind bars in West Virginia.

A PROUD SON CARRIES ON

Sometimes Donna Lamonaco stops in her tracks when she sees her son stand a certain way or polish his gear at the table.

At 29, trooper Michael Lamo naco is nearly as old as his dad was when he was killed, and he bears a strong resemblance to him.

She sees the same dry sense of humor in her son as she did in her husband, who died when Michael was 4. And the same pride in the uniform and respect for people.

Michael Lamonaco doesn't have vivid memories of his father, except of one time cutting wood with him -- Michael with his plastic Fisher- Price saw -- and traveling in the family pickup.

But he has come to know his dad through the stories of others who frequently refer to Philip La monaco as being fair and a "troop er's trooper" who watched out like a big brother for colleagues.

"Phil would be rather proud," Gallant said. "I know young Mike, and I think he's a great trooper."

Donna Lamonaco remembers her son at age 8 asking her to put a yellow stripe down the side of his blue Christian school pants so he could be a New Jersey state trooper for Halloween.

"I was just like, here we go," the mother said.

So when she saw the signs, did she try to steer her son to a safer profession?

"See, I was very proud of what Phil did," she said. "He did his job well. He was a good guy. God and I have a lot of talks ... But you can't prevent (Michael) from doing what he wants to do, no matter what it is.

"I want him to remember what his dad stood for, rather than how his dad died," she said. "He's a smart kid, and he knows his stuff, so I can sleep at night."

Mike Frassinelli may be reached at mfrassinelli@starledger.com or (908) 475-1218.