It was all in the family for jeweler-slay suspect Christopher DiMeo – his mom drove the getaway car, cops said yesterday.
Maryann Taylor-Casey (right), 40, of Hicksville, L.I., was busted and charged with murder and robbery just days after her fugitive son was collared at an Atlantic City motel.
DiMeo, a parolee, is suspected of murdering three people in a string of jewelry-store heists in New York and Connecticut over the past two months.
Cops said Taylor-Casey drove the getaway car for her son on Dec. 21, after he had just robbed a Glen Head, L.I., jewelry store and fatally shot Thomas Renison, a salesman there. DiMeo allegedly netted more than $80,000 in gems in that robbery.
His mom’s startling arrest came as grieving friends and relatives of DiMeo’s other alleged robbery-slay victims – a Fairfield, Conn., couple – gathered to remember the beloved pair at their wake.
Kimberly and Timothy Donnelly were gunned down in their jewelry store during a holdup last week.
“They were such a nice couple,” said Mary Burke, who works in an office above the Fairfield jewelry store. “I can’t believe this.”
Cops said DiMeo had become addicted to heroin in recent years and committed a string of crimes to feed his habit. Neighbors of DiMeo’s mom in Hicksville said she had been living in a local boarding house riddled with problems.
“The cops are always there. It’s a nightmare,” with pit bulls and people always screaming, one resident said.
“We didn’t see her enough to think she lived there,” said another neighbor, Dawn Vallone, who lives next-door.
A woman answering the door at the boarding house warned a reporter, “Do me a favor, and get the f – – – out of here. My dog’s ready to murder somebody, and I don’t want a lawsuit on my hands.”
Meanwhile, police said they will charge DiMeo, 23, with the three murders as soon as the jurisdictional complexities are sorted out.
DiMeo yesterday remained in a jail in Atlantic City, where he had fled amid an intense manhunt after cops connected him to the slayings.
He is scheduled to be arraigned today in New Jersey on a parole-violation charge.
But police and prosecutors in New York and Connecticut plan to discuss his extradition at a morning news conference today to pave the way for the murder raps.
Additional reporting by Leonard Greene