Runaway Joe: Rochester murder suspect hid in Ireland for decades

Joseph Maloney allegedly poisoned his wife in 1967, then fled justice — reinventing himself in Dublin before a podcast exposed him. A new book tells the full story.

Rochester man accused of poisoning wife lived as Irish gentleman for years

Google News IE — Crime (en) reports on an extract from Runaway Joe, a new book by Pavel Barter based on the acclaimed RTÉ Documentary On One true crime podcast series — the story of a man who evaded justice across continents for more than six decades.

At his son Joey's fifth birthday party in Rochester, New York, in 1967, Joseph Maloney was alleged to have poisoned his wife, June. The party was held at 190 Eastmoreland Drive in the southern district of the city. More than a dozen guests were present, including June's 23-year-old brother Dale Fisk and his fiancée Gladys MacDiarmid.

Maloney — six feet two inches tall, red-haired, and known for holding court — acted as bartender throughout the afternoon, serving drinks to the gathered guests. He brought June a screwdriver, a cocktail of orange juice and vodka served in a patterned water glass, and later a Manhattan made with whiskey, sweet vermouth and bitters.

June told her brother the second drink had been "awfully strong" and that she couldn't finish it. Around 6pm, two hours after arriving, she left with her son. A short distance into the drive home, she pulled over near Strong Memorial Hospital and began to cry. When Joey asked what was wrong, she did not respond.

Maloney was subsequently accused of poisoning his estranged wife that evening. While awaiting trial in the psychiatric wing of a Rochester hospital, he escaped and disappeared.

A new identity in Dublin

Years later, a man calling himself Michael O'Shea appeared in Dublin. He lived as a country gentleman and worked at a senior level in Ireland's film industry. For years his true identity remained unknown — until a US extradition treaty brought it to light.

Arrested in Ireland in 1985, Maloney again avoided a conviction when his trial collapsed on a technicality. He fled Ireland, leaving both US and Irish investigators without any clear indication of his whereabouts.

His trail went cold for decades.

The archive surfaces in Florida

The story resurfaced through an unlikely chain of events. Jim Memmott, a columnist for the Rochester newspaper Democrat & Chronicle, encountered lawyer Robert "Chip" Presutti and fell into conversation. Chip's late father, Thomas Presutti, had been a celebrated criminal defence lawyer in Rochester and had acted as Maloney's attorney.

When Thomas died, Chip inherited his father's files — including an archive that Maloney had left behind when he went on the run in 1967. Because Chip had never personally represented Maloney and his father was deceased, client-attorney privilege no longer applied to the material.

Memmott passed word to Gary Craig, another Democrat & Chronicle reporter who had covered the Maloney case years earlier and had revisited it after RTÉ, Ireland's national broadcaster, released a podcast series on the case in 2024. "Chip doesn't want the stuff," Memmott wrote. "Do you? Or are there members of Maloney's family who would want it? A strange turn in the never-ending saga of Runaway Joe."

The archive found its way to Joey, now 62, Maloney's son — the boy who had cried "What's wrong, Mommy?" from the back seat more than half a century earlier. He opened a manila envelope and out came the material: a birth certificate, a passport, a vaccination certificate, a wallet with business cards and addresses, photographs of Maloney as a baby, a young man, and an adult. Also included were childhood pictures of Joey and his sister Patti-Ann, a portrait of June in her nurse's uniform, and the registration for Maloney's prized 1965 red Ford Mustang.

Barter, the book's author, was present as Joey examined each item. "My interest in the case began after I read a memoir by Gillian Hussey, a judge in Ireland who had dealt with Joe's case," Barter writes. That interest developed into the RTÉ Documentary on One podcast, which he describes as "a sensation", and ultimately into the book.

A portrait of a manipulator

Runaway Joe presents Maloney as a man who "reinvented himself with chilling ease" — described in the book as "a remorseless manipulator whose acts left devastation across continents." The account draws on police testimony, journalistic records, legal files and the recollections of those who encountered him on both sides of the Atlantic.

Dale Fisk, June's brother, later testified to police about what he had overheard at the party — an argument between June and Joe about her car — and about the condition June appeared to be in before she left. She had looked tired and drowsy, he recalled, as though she had consumed more alcohol than she had.

The book is published alongside the podcast series and represents the most comprehensive account to date of a case that spanned Rochester, Dublin and points unknown — a manhunt that lasted more than six decades before investigators, and eventually a broadcaster, picked up the trail again.

Source: Google News IE — Crime (en)