Remember Seta

Seta Rampersad, a student at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, died in the presence of at least three other people on September 13, 1978. Seta, the only person of color in the group, died at some point between leaving the Captain’s Table in Northampton just before 1:30 a.m. and when she was discovered by paramedics twelve hours later. The cause of Seta’s death was stated as respiratory failure, but what caused it has never been established. No one was held responsible for her death, not for failing to seek any medical intervention while she died, and not for abandoning her for the paramedics to find her naked and bruised body, alone.

Room 240

According to testimony, in the early hours of Wednesday, September 13, 1978, Seta Rampersad finished her shift as a waitress at the Captain’s Table, a popular dance and dinner spot on Damon Road in Northampton. Seta had taken the job after her financial aid package had been reduced. A political science major at UMass in her last year, Seta wanted to become an international relations lawyer to help people migrate to the US, as her parents had. It was after midnight and the buses did not run late. It was also a school night, so Seta had a textbook with her. She was two classes away from finishing her degree.

Demetrios Konstantopolous (40), also known as Jimmy the Greek, was a frequent guest of The Captain’s Table in Northampton and was friends with the owner. Seta had met Jimmy three months prior, and he had driven her home a few times before. According to him, they had snorted cocaine and danced together, but Jimmy didn’t know Seta’s last name. Jimmy was drinking vodka and soda, waiting for Seta to finish her shift, when Brian Pitzer (24) and Carol Newton (33) arrived. Jimmy was the owner of the Castaway Lounge, a strip bar just down the road in Whately. Brian was unemployed and an alcoholic who had gotten into trouble with the law a few times, including an incident where he stole a rifle and then accidentally shot himself in the leg. At one point he had lived in a farmhouse across from Castaways, but Jimmy and Brian did not know each other well, Brian had only been an occasional customer at Castaways. Carol was an assistant cook at Northampton State Hospital with a penchant for taking souvenirs. Carol and Brian had finished off a bottle of wine at Packards in Northampton before heading to the Captain’s Table.

After closing time at the Captain’s Table, sometime before 1:30 a.m., the four left for the Castaway Lounge to continue their party. Castaways was officially closed by that time too, so when there was a knock at the door around 1:45 a.m., the party decided to relocate the Deerfield Motel 6 (today Red Roof Inn), just a few miles further down Routes 5 and 10, arriving between 2 and 2:30 a.m..

According to testimony, the woman at the night desk said that Jimmy requested a room with two double beds, though he claimed to have been alone. Jimmy was assigned to room 240.

Carol testified that as soon as they entered the room Jimmy took off his pants, which made her uncomfortable.

Testimony on precisely how much drugging was done varies widely between each account of the three witnesses to Seta’s death. According to Jimmy’s testimony, they all snorted coke. According to Brian, Jimmy and Carol snorted coke but Seta did not, and when asked about his own cocaine use Brian pleaded the 5th. Carol said that they all snorted coke, and smoked pot, and that Brian had supplied both. There was consensus that everyone had been drinking.

The group then paired off, Seta with Jimmy and Carol with Brian, and each couple went to bed. There was an odd shower moment where Carol and Brian were in the shower and Jimmy dragged Seta in by the arm, proposing a foursome, which was refused.

Jimmy claimed Seta woke him up when she began experiencing seizures. Before this moment Seta had never had any medical history or experience related to seizures or epilepsy, nor had the Rampersad family. Jimmy woke Carol, who thought Seta appeared to be sleeping, and went back to sleep herself. Jimmy woke Carol again, and “Seta was shaking all over, her legs were stiff, her lips were purple and her fingertips were cold. Her eyes would roll up in her head, then come back down,” (VMag June/July 2000). Jimmy slapped Seta a few times to make her stop. Carol felt Jimmy was slapping Seta too hard, and testified that he seemed to become angry with Seta. Carol tried to wake Brian, but he was drunk and high and did not respond.

There were at least two episodes of what Jimmy and Carol described as seizures, each lasting about ten minutes. Carol wanted to call an ambulance but Jimmy refused any outside help.

Suppression

In the simplest explanation, racism is a kind of objectification, dehumanizing someone to the extent they are more an object than a person. To this end people of color are often portrayed as more animal than human. Hyper-sexualization of brown and black bodies also trends towards dismissal of their experiences and the suppression of their voices.

In Seta’s case her body, dead or alive, was so objectified and yet simultaneously central to the discussion of culpability that no one in the motel room, few in the courtroom, nor many in the press gave much, if any consideration to her intent, what she was thinking or her voice, other than that she may have at some point had sex. Once Seta crossed the line from being a good girl to a sexual woman she became more of an animal or thing than a person in the eyes of the last people to see her alive, and later, the court.

Dawn

Carol and Jimmy testified that they traveled to Whately Diner for breakfast at some point around dawn, leaving Seta and Brian in the motel room, asleep. Testimony regarding what time varied between witnesses. In Jimmy’s take of events it was still dark outside when they left, but in Carol’s testimony she remembered that it was light outside. Jimmy ate but Carol did not.

Brian and Seta were still asleep when Carol and Jimmy returned, but Seta began having another seizure. Both attempted to rouse Brian again, again he remained out cold. Jimmy may have attempted to give Seta coffee from the diner, which she may have spit out. According to Jimmy, he then brought Seta to the shower and ran cold water over her for about five minutes. Seta began moaning, the first time she made sounds since her episodes started. In carrying Seta back to the bed Jimmy testified that he had slipped and dropped Seta on the ground. Later Jimmy would bring Seta back to the bathroom again to induce vomiting with two of his fingers to clear her air passage, which she did.

At some point Jimmy placed a spoon in Seta’s mouth in an effort to prevent her from biting her own tongue. Carol was standing in the doorway when he was trying to insert the spoon. Brian woke when Seta was being carried back to bed and told Jimmy and Carol to use a wallet rather than the spoon. With Jimmy and Carol propping Seta up, Brian placed his wallet in her mouth and testified that he could see marks on the back of her throat from the spoon. It turned out that this spoon was not property of the motel, nor the diner, but from Packards care of Carol, who liked to take spoons and fancy glasses.

Brian then fell asleep again, waking around 8 a.m., as Jimmy and Carol were preparing to depart. Brian said he checked Seta’s vitals before they left and after, checking them periodically until after noon, when he made his way downstairs after a dramatic drop in Seta’s pulse, for a cup of coffee, a cigarette, and asked if he could retain the room for another night on account of Seta being sick. In addition to being unconscious for a majority of the evening and still intoxicated, Brian Pitzer was also an unemployed psychiatric nursing assistant, and testified that Seta’s eyes looked OK, despite that she was nonverbal.

At 1 p.m. Brian called an ambulance and left the motel before the paramedics arrived.

The Franklin County Hospital in Greenfield recorded the call for an ambulance at 1 p.m.. The ambulance arrived at the Motel 6 in Deerfield at 1:10 p.m.. The first of the two paramedics said that Seta was dead at the scene, her eyes were dilated and she had no pulse. They told the police they “found her head and shoulders were cold and felt that rigor mortis was setting in,” (VMag June/July 2000).

Trooper Ronald Baran, A State Police officer, would later testify that Seta’s body was still limber at 1:40 p.m. Between 2 p.m. and 2:30 p.m., Larry Wrisley, an undertaker arrived at the motel and stated that Seta was “definitely rigid” and that “it was obvious that the body was in a state of rigor mortis,” (VMag June/July 2000). According to the National Institutes of Health “Rigor mortis appears approximately 2 hours after death in the muscles of the face, progresses to the limbs over the next few hours, completing between 6 to 8 hours after death.”

Dr. John H. Olson, the Medical Examiner for the Western District of Franklin County, ended up filing two Death Certificates for Seta. On the first, the day she was found dead, he did not indicate a cause of death, instead noted “pending autopsy report.” The following day he wrote another, under cause of death he wrote “homicide?” Dr. Olson placed the time of Seta’s death between midnight and 6 a.m., likely around 3 a.m. He then requested an Inquest into Seta’s demise.

The Call

Just after 11 p.m. in Milton, a city north of Boston, a vacuum repair man, an immigrant of Trinidad, a father of daughters, Sonny Rampersad got the call. The caller did not identify themselves, but asked if Sonny knew Seta. Sonny was then told to call the Wrisley Funeral Home in South Deerfield. During his conversation with the funeral home, something was said that strongly implied the Rampersads could not see their daughter until the following morning. Moments later Sonny called his wife Pearl, and three remaining daughters.

The next day Sonny, Pearl, and Sandy, the oldest of the Rampersad children, were driven to the funeral home. After being met by two state troopers they were allowed to see Seta’s body. Sonny hesitated, so Pearl and Sandy went down to the morgue first, to make sure Seta was covered. In the basement they found Seta laid out on a slab with “some metal thing” around her head, her body cut open and sewn closed. An autopsy had already been performed, without their knowledge. Seta was wearing a salmon colored outfit, and in preparation for her sister Sally’s birthday Seta had painted her toenails bright red. Seta was still wearing a gold bracelet from Pearl, who had purchased two when she first arrived in America, one for Seta and the other for Sandy, who stood before her now.

When Sonny came into the room he simply stood, looking at his daughter for a moment.

“He touched her forehead; “You hate to be cold, and you’re so cold,” he said. He kept picking up her hand and asking her what happened. Sonny then noticed the bruises around her mouth and got angry. He put his hand around her mouth. “Look Pearl,” he said, “somebody was holding her like this, somebody did something to her,” (VMag June/July 2000).

One more thing that was out of place that night, though it would only be recognized until later: the Massachusetts State Police said they did not call Sonny, and it is not clear who could have, if not them.

Inquest

In the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, an Inquest is a special kind of trial where a judge determines if an investigation is warranted. Inquests are only called when a death has occurred under mysterious circumstances, and are rare, meaning inquests are notoriously high-profile events.

The inquest into Seta’s death began two months after her body was found, on November 13, 1978. There is some controversy over who called for the inquest, the Medical Examiner, Dr. Olson is said to have requested the proceeding following the questionable nature of how Seta died, but in an interview with the Greenfield Recorder, then-District Attorney John Callahan stated that he had called for the inquest “to clear the air,” Greenfield Recorder, October 20, 1978. Callahan had been pressed by students from the UMass Third World Women’s Task Force since a week after Seta had died. Callahan had promised that if lab results did not establish a cause of death, that he would consider calling an inquest. The results came back in mid-October, stating that Seta had died from undetermined causes.

The inquest was presided over by Judge Allan McGuane. Representing the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was assistant District Attorney Bernie Whalen Jr., who had just lost a bid for the role of District Attorney. Mike Ryan, who would later become a judge and then a local author, represented Brian Pitzer. Donal Dunphy, another former DA candidate, and John O’Connell represented Jimmy the Greek. Ozell Hudson, a lawyer from UMass Legal Services represented the Rampersad family. Hudson had not yet passed the bar, but was allowed to practice by order of the court.

Over the course of five days, twenty four witnesses were called. The three party-goers presented very different and often contradictory accounts of what happened.

On the first day of testimony, Brian gave his version of events leading up to Seta’s death, as well as his actions in leaving her at the motel, including that he didn’t bother to give anyone his name, because he did not feel he had any helpful information for paramedics or the police. As his testimony came to a close and Brian was describing his last moments before leaving Seta, he seemed to be confused as to how many people were in the room that day. According to his testimony, just before leaving to call the ambulance Brian testified that a blond man, about 40 years old had come to the door regarding towels. Brian had tried to exchange some of the wet towels from the room for dry ones, but when he tried to take towels that were directly across from the door, the blond man became upset.

When questioned if Brian had met with Jimmy to discuss giving testimony at the inquest, Brian refused to answer, then asked if he could speak to his lawyer, then changed his story to include another witness.

Brian would again take the stand to give testimony on November 15, this time introducing a yet mentioned witness, Mathew Sarafin, a 29 year old nurse at the V.A. Hospital in Leeds. It turned out that Mathew was the blond man, who according to Brian’s second testimony, he had called to help him out of a tough spot, yet none of the witnesses had mentioned Mathew until this point and “seven local and State Police investigators failed to account for him,” (VMag June/July 2000).

Dr. Ambrose Keeley, a pathologist from Boston City Hospital, who had autopsied Seta, was called to the stand on the second day of testimony. Keeley had performed the autopsy in the presence of Dr. Olson and State Troopers. During that examination they found bruises on the left side of Seta’s mouth, consistent with impressions left by fingertips and nails. “There were abrasions on Seta’s lower lip and there was a deep lesion on the vertebrae in her neck that Dr. Keeley said was consistent with “some rather violent movement of the head shortly before she died,” (VMag June/July 2000).” They also found fresh red hemorrhages, consistent with a broken rib.

He had found no obvious signs of drugs, including track marks. Dr. Keeley had looked for evidence of foreign substances in Seta’s lungs, such as residue or materials lodged in the lungs, but found none. Dr. Keeley also stated that he felt unqualified to discuss how drugs might be linked to Seta’s death.

Hudson asked Keeley about the possibilty that Seta may have died from a heroin overdose, which could have been ingested without Seta’s full knowledge, thinking it was cocaine.

“When performing the autopsy the day Seta died, Dr. Keeley looked for evidence of epilepsy, but found none. Scars on the brain, characteristic of the disease and hemorrhages in muscles, evidence of seizures, were not evident,” (Valley Advocate, March 14 1979). Dr. Keeley had not discussed this case with the Medical Examiner, and had not read any of the transcripts of witness testimony before taking the stand.

When Dr. Olson took the stand, judge McGuane set clear guardrails for his testimony. McGuane “cautioned him to give only his medical opinion, without speculation or conjecture, as to the cause of death. At the end of Dr. Olson’s testimony, the attorney for the Rampersad family asked the aged doctor if he were willing to change his report on the cause of death from homicide. The doctor said no, he would not change it. “Questionable homicide?” asked Judge McGuane. “Questionable, yes, replied the medical examiner, (Valley Advocate, March 14 1979).

“A State Police fingerprinting expert testified that he had expected to find prints, but did not, on a formica tabletop, a shelf, the sink, the toilet seat and the much-handled spoon that was found in room 240. One possible explanation for the lack of prints was that, according to Sarafin’s testimony, Pitzer – who was so intoxicated on alchohol, valium, cocaine and pot that he spent much of the night passed out – cleaned up the room prior to the arrival of the ambulance and police. Assistant DA Whalen, who conducted the inquest for the Commonwealth, never asked Pitzer if Sarafin’s testimony was true, (VMag June/July 2000).

Hudson called a press conference on December 7, 1978, after the fourth day of testimony. “Even if Seta’s death was not intentional, those in the room should be liable for reckless disregard of human life-or manslaughter.” Hudson was frustrated with what appeared to him to be a sham trial, noting that he was only included to make the inquest seem fair. Hudson also complained that substances found in room 240 were not properly analyzed by the police.

During the course of the inquest Judge McGuane did not allow Hudson to challenge the credibility of any of the witnesses, nor their statements.

The inquest concluded on December 19, 1978.

Case Closed

On January 4, 1979, Judge Allan McGuane delivered his six page report on the inquest, which had generated 647 pages of transcripts. In his report Judge McGuane set the time of death at approximately 1 p.m. on September 13, 1978, refuting both the Medical Examiner and the Pathologist, who in testimony described Seta’s death as likely sometime between midnight and 6 a.m., as well as the observation of the EMTs who arrived 10 minutes after 1 p.m. and observed rigor mortis had already begun to set in, the undertaker, Larry Wrisley, who was never called to testify and also observed the signs of rigor mortis after 2 p.m.. Deerfield Police Chief John Skroski, the first cop on the scene, and several other local and state police officers were also never called to testify.

“The victim was not beaten to death, was not strangled with a ligature, was not shot, was not stabbed, was not poisoned, was not intoxicated, no evidence of drugs in her system,” Judge McGuane stated, based on the testimony of Dr. Keeley,” (Valley Advocate, March 14 1979)”. Judge McGuane closed the case without determining the cause of Seta’s death or holding anyone accountable for her demise, nor for potentially watching her die without calling for medical intervention, and not for abandoning her.

Thomas Simons, the new District Attorney who took over for Callahan, stated that “he would recommend no further legal action,”(Valley Advocate, March 14 1979). Simons stated “it does not appear that the death of Seta T. Rampersad, late of Amherst, was caused by the unlawful act of any individual.”

According to the witnesses, Seta drifted in and out of consciousness for 10 hours, suffering several “seizures” and endured being slapped around so hard it left bruises that alarmed her father and the medical examiner, was dragged into a cold shower, dropped on the floor, had her mouth stuffed with Jimmy’s fingers, a spoon and a wallet, and yet none of her compatriots could recall a single word she might have said during her entire, final ordeal. Only Jimmy’s testimony signaled that she might have been verbal at some point once the “seizures” began, when he alone was holding her under a cold shower. According to the findings of the inquest, later, she just died. Judge McGuate did not find this to be sufficient reason to pursue a criminal investigation.

Phantom Party

In February Nummo News, a revolutionary newsletter on campus, reported a rumor that several other people from the community had attended the party where Seta had died. The news swept the community into a greater fervor but ultimately the D.A. felt there was too little evidence to investigate.

Aftermath

On April 25, 1979 the Third World Women’s Task Force in cooperation with the Committee Against Repression requested D.A. Simons reopen the Rampersad case, citing inconsistencies and flaws in the investigation.

In May 1979, District Attorney Simons refused to reopen the Rampersad case despite public pressure. The Advocate responded with an editorial lambasting his decision in light of so many irregularities in the investigation as well as the inquest itself. The Daily Hampshire Gazette, which had defended the inquest and Simons, responded to The Advocate, deflecting any racial import. The Advocate responded to The Gazette the following month.

The Third World Women’s Task Force orchestrated a vigil on September 13, 1979. Coffins were carried through The Captain’s Table, where Seta had worked, and a candlelight vigil outside the Northampton Courthouse. The October issue of the Valley Women’s Voice front page was dedicated to Seta and the protest with Did Justice Die With Seta?

Brian Pitzer would later claim that he was stabbed when someone picked him up hitch hiking. He said that it was because the driver was upset with the Seta case. Brian refused treatment for the wound, and later it seemed likely that he had hurt himself rather than having been attacked. He died in 1990. A memorial bench is dedicated in his honor at Look Memorial Park in Florence MA.

Sonny Rampersad, Seta’s dad, died on September 11, 1999. Sonny never filed a civil suit for the wrongful death of his daughter, on account that sex had been a factor the night she died. He is buried with his daughter.

In the Summer of 2000 a local zine called VMag, short for Valley Magazine dedicated an entire issue to Seta. Their team happened to meet the Rampersad family visiting Sonny and Seta’s grave. Their work was instrumental to this article.

Demetrios Konstantopolous, aka Jimmy the Greek, walked free. He had at least on other run in with the law, regarding one of his dancers, whom he was accused of physically and emotionally abusing. He sold the Castaway Lounge in 2014. Jimmy died at his home in Whately on June 15, 2023.