The murder weapon has never been found, and grand juries have twice investigated the 1978 slaying -- to no avail.

08/04/2003

BY JESSICA ULLIAN
Journal Staff Writer

WARREN -- Twenty-five years later, Hirum Jamiel can visualize his brother Amon's murder clearly.

He sees Amon in the shower, blind without his glasses, vulnerable without his clothes. He sees the killer or killers entering the bathroom. He sees Amon turning toward the sound, pushing aside the shower door, possibly even saying something before receiving 10 gunshots to his temple and abdomen.

He does not see, with certainty, the faces. The Amon Jamiel murder case has never been solved.

Accusations have flown within the family, rumors have abounded, and the case has been investigated by a grand jury twice. The murder weapon, however, has never been found, and it remains the sticking point that has hampered investigations again and again.

Journal files / Richard Benjamin Well-known Warren store owner Amon Jamiel in 1975, three years before his death.

Yet Hirum and his older brother Morphis Jamiel are confident their brother's killer will be found.

And recently, even Warren police Lt. Peter Achilli, who was assigned to the case two years ago, has become optimistic.

"Over the past two or three years, there's been minimal, but helpful and interesting, statements that have come from the family," Achilli said. "It's a situation where the case will be solved. I know it's been 25 years, but in time it will be solved."

The town of Warren, population 11,213, continues to wait.

THE 13 Jamiel brothers and sisters, all Warren-born and raised, are deeply and visibly rooted in the town's life and history. A short walk down Main Street takes pedestrians past Jamiel's Shoe World and Jamiel's Insurance; Morphis Jamiel's law office is a block away on Market Street, and Jamiel Park is a little farther.

Amon Jamiel, the eldest, led the way with his hardware store, the General Supply Co. at 429 Main St. -- better known as "The House of a Million Items."

Journal photo / Bob Thayer At his law office, Morphis Jamiel, Amon's brother, says he hopes that recent family conflicts will spur someone with information about the slaying to come forward.

From the time he opened the store in 1945, he was a public figure in Warren: the man others called the town's "unofficial mayor," the man who could provide anyone with anything from the towering shelves of his store.

He was a shrewd businessman, eager to offer the best discounts but adamant about reaping the returns. He would give to local charities, his brother Hirum said, but only if they bought from him.

"He was a hard worker," Hirum said. "He worked for whatever he had, and he wasn't about to give it away so easily."

Amon's business thrived for years, but in the late 1970s some trouble began. He noticed that his daily purchase receipts and deposits consistently weren't matching up, according to Hirum. Then, in January 1978, more than $4,000 was stolen from a hiding place in the store.

Two months later, on March 13, 1978, the General Supply Co. was destroyed by a fire that the police believe was set.

The merchant vowed to rebuild, but six days later, Amon's wife, Marcelle, and son Jonathan returned to their house at 33 Miller St. from Marcelle's birthday dinner in Newport to find the 60-year-old lying dead in the shower. He had been shot six times in the head and four times in the abdomen. One bullet had just grazed his head.

Police believed that the gun was a cheap .32-caliber Harrington-Richardson revolver taken from Jamiel's store.

Journal photo / Bob Thayer Warren police Lt. Peter T. Achilli displays a large box of evidence in the Amon Jamiel murder case. Achilli has been working on the 1978 murder for about two years.

An investigation followed, but the weapon wasn't found, and the crime scene was examined by the police but not fully secured. A 1979 grand jury investigation found insufficient evidence, and the case was closed.

The investigation was reopened by Police Chief Emilio Squillante at the end of 1984, and eight years later a suspect was identified:

Jonathan Jamiel, the youngest of Amon's three sons.

A GRAND JURY investigated Jonathan Jamiel in 1986, after Atty. Gen. Arlene Violet filed a subpoena in Superior Court identifying him as a suspect in his father's murder. The subpoena requested Jonathan's personal bank records, and included testimony from an acquaintance who told the police that Jonathan wore expensive clothes and jewelry, ate at fine restaurants in Boston, and said that he would be "coming into a lot of money in the near future."

The grand jury proceedings were tainted, however, when a Superior Court clerk inadvertently released the subpoena to a Journal reporter, and the focus shifted toward the breach of secrecy of grand jury proceedings and away from the murder.

Ultimately, the grand jury declined to return an indictment, citing lack of evidence. No additional suspects were named, and the case never appeared in court again.

THE FOLLOWING years were marked by occasional incidents within the Jamiel family, periodic flashes of news or hope, and a prevailing attitude that the murder would only be solved with the murderer's help.

Earlier this year, Amon Jamiel's son Jonathan, left, accused his brother, Mark, of threatening him with the gun that killed their father. Jonathan was later found guilty of filing a false police report.

In 1991, both Jonathan and his brother Mark accused each other of assault after a fight at the Miller Street house, where both brothers lived with their mother.

In 1998, a barnacle-encrusted gun was found in the Warren River, prompting speculation that it was the missing weapon. Tests showed that it was a replica, not a real gun.

The most recent disputes in the Jamiel family also involved Jonathan and Mark. Last March, Jonathan accused his brother of threatening him with the gun that killed their father. Mark claimed to have been out of the state when the alleged threat occurred, and Jonathan was charged with and found guilty of filing a false police report.

While the incident failed to provide any information about the murder, Morphis Jamiel hoped that the conflict might push someone with information about the case to come forward.

"Now it's coming to fruition," said the 81-year-old lawyer. "I think it's up to the police to carry on the investigation further."

Achilli, of the Warren police, said that despite a lack of new evidence, the process continues.

"We're not excluding anybody as a suspect," he said.

AMON JAMIEL'S brothers have never stopped believing that the killer will be found.

Hirum Jamiel has never stopped imagining the scene that took place when Amon was killed.

"We never give up," he said. "I never stop thinking about what he might have done, or what he might have said to them."

His brother Amon was a powerful man, he said, strong from years of lifting heavy items in his hardware store. But when he couldn't fight for something, he would drop his hands to his sides in defeat.

It's the gesture that Hirum sees when he sees his brother's death.

"He had no choice," he said. "He just gave up."

COLD CASE CONTACT: Anyone with information about the Jamiel murder may contact the Warren Police Department at 245-1311.

DIGITAL EXTRA: Look back at the first installment in the Cold Case series, at: http://projo.com/extra/2003/coldcase/