Charles Maikish

Charles Maikish

Interview transcript

Charles Maikish: One other victim was John DiGiovanni. He was a dental salesman. It was just happenstance that he happened to be there.

He had made a sales call, parked his car and the bomb exploded.

And uh, he had been living with his mother at the time, Ann DiGiovanni, and I’ll, I’ll never forget this because I had dispatched my deputy to go with the police to notify the families and it became a police visit rather than a family visit. And I always regretted that.

And we took a ride out to Long Island to see Mrs. DiGiovanni. And, you know, we talked about how we were going to console her, what could we do, we brought flowers, we bought fruit.

What do you say to a woman that lost her son?

And she had coffee and danish for us. She was worried about us. “You’re working too hard I see the bags under your eyes. The work that you’re doing is good work.”

No concern for herself and the loss that she encountered. She wanted to take care of us.

We’ve held annual memorial services every year on February 26 and Ann DiGiovanni came to every single one of those, and she was a pillar of strength. She cheered up everybody else.

It was remarkable. She amazed me, absolutely amazed me.