When Doris Duke, a fabulously wealthy tobacco and power company heiress, ran over and killed a longtime employee and confidant at her Newport, Rhode Island, mansion in 1966, police took her at her word that it was an accident.
But the story of the killing at Duke鈥檚 Rough Point estate, which has resonated in the seaside tourist mecca, is being challenged by a witness 鈥� the paperboy.
Bob Walker, a Marine Corps veteran, says he was there the day Duke killed 42-year-old Eduardo Tirella, driving into him twice with a 2-ton station wagon as he screamed below it.
Peter Lance, an author and journalist whose meticulously researched book, investigated the killing and recently interviewed Walker, who was 13 years old in 1966.
鈥淭his is one of those stories that is still talked about in Newport,鈥� said Lance, a city native who got his first reporting job at The Newport Daily 瓜神app several months after Tirella鈥檚 death. 鈥淚 read a Facebook page for Newport residents and every three or four months someone brings this up.鈥�
Walker, now 68, says in a released Thursday by Vanity Fair that he never went to police to tell them what he saw that day on the advice of his father, who feared for his son鈥檚 life. The older man warned his son that Duke was a 鈥渞otten person鈥� who 鈥渉ad some people on her payroll who were very unscrupulous.鈥�
Duke inherited her money from her father, James Duke, president of the American Tobacco Co. and co-founder of the company known today as Duke Energy. Duke University in North Carolina is named for her family.
After reading Lance鈥檚 book, Walker last month went to police to give investigators his account of events, which he had only previously shared with a small circle of family and friends, and in response, local police are reexamining the case even though Duke died in 1993.
鈥淭he Newport Police Department would like to look further into this (due to the new information we鈥檝e been given), and rectify any possible misinformation concluded in the past, if any, for Eduardo and his family," Detective Jacque Wuest, who has been assigned to reopen the case, said in an email Thursday.
Walker, who was on his bike delivering The Newport Daily 瓜神app, told Lance he first heard 鈥渢wo people obviously arguing and screaming at each other.鈥�
鈥淎nd the next thing I heard was the roar of a motor, the crash, the screaming of a man, ever so slight skidding sound and deacceleration of the motor, a pause in the screaming, a man beginning to scream again, the roar of the motor again, the man鈥檚 scream turning to horror of 鈥楴ooooooo!鈥欌�� and then another crash, he said.
When he came on the scene, he said he saw Duke get out of a car and move her body to block his view. He asked her if she wanted any help and if she wanted him to call police, and he said she screamed at him to leave.
Tirella had worked as a designer for Duke for several years. On the day of the death, the pair were taking the station wagon to look at an artifact, according to Lance鈥檚 book. But Duke was allegedly furious at Tirella for telling her that he was leaving her to become a set designer in Hollywood.
Police conducted a brief interview with Duke several days later at which point investigators took her at her word.
She said Tirella was driving but had gotten out of the car to open the estate鈥檚 massive wrought-iron gates, so she got behind the steering wheel to drive through the gates. She told police the car suddenly 鈥渓eaped forward.鈥� The police report said Tirella was crushed against the gates.
But that鈥檚 not what Walker heard. He said he distinctly heard two impacts. And his recollection of events matched a police investigator who concluded that Duke struck Tirella once, sending him onto the hood of the car, then when he fell off, accelerated again and ran him over. The car ended up careening across the street where it struck a fence and tree.
Walker, in a telephone interview, said he never bought the official account of the death and went to police as a civic duty.
鈥淭he narrative that was accepted by the cops was not the narrative that I remembered,鈥� he said.
