Noir Crime: Phantom Killer Of Noyac Road Shoots Innocent Passserby

It was midnight on a Wednesday night in July 1932, when four young people left Sunset Beach in Sag Harbor and headed home.

The teenaged foursome, two males and two females, chatted excitedly about the upcoming weekend and made plans to get together. They were Bernard Ernest and his buddy, Earl Stevens, from East Hampton, and Lucille Deckert and Emma Willer from Bridgehampton.

The group headed down Noyac Road, toward Sunrise Parkway, and approached the intersection of Stony Hill Road. As they came to the intersection, the teens could see a figure standing in the center of the road. The man, described as “clad in all white” was holding a shotgun. The gun was aimed directly at them.

As they passed the mysterious figure in white, there was a huge explosion and young Mr. Ernest could be heard to exclaim, “I’ve been shot. I can’t find the brakes!”

And with that, the car crashed into a tree stump and the figure in white disappeared into the night.

The bullets had entered Mr. Ernest’s back and torn through his lungs. He died at the scene. The other passengers were cut and bruised but released from Southampton Hospital later that morning.

Mr. Ernest was only 19 years old when he was murdered by the person who became known as “The Phantom Killer of Noyac Road.” He was born in 1912 to Thomas and Julia Ernest and appeared to be an upstanding kid. His father was a carpenter and young Bernard had a job at the East Hampton Mechanical Repair Shop. His boss, E.J. Dominy, would have nothing but good things to say about young Mr. Ernest after the shooting.

This case revolved around a cast of characters worthy of any Hollywood film. To tell the story of the bizarre sequence of events that ended in the murder of an innocent young man, one must go back and acquaint themselves with the participants in this tragic saga.

We start with the nexus of this sordid affair, 26-year-old Katherine Gray. She was of Scotch descent and described as a “very pretty brunette.” She was born in 1906 to J.B. and Irma Gray and grew up in Texas.

Though her father is listed as the head of the household on the census forms, his occupation was a bit sketchy. Under occupation it simply said “income” and no other information was available. Very unusual for a census report.

The household consisted of Mr. and Ms. Gray and their four children. Whatever the source of Mr. Gray’s “income,” it provided enough funds for Ms. Gray to graduate in 1923 from a prep school located in Birmingham, Pennsylvania.

Sometime after graduating, Ms. Gray married Harold Chapman, a manager for a local paper factory. The couple moved to Noyac Road, near Sag Harbor.

The marriage lasted until July 1931 when, for reasons that are unknown, the couple divorced. A clue, however, might be found in the fact that shortly after her divorce and just months before the murder of Mr. Ernest, Ms. Gray’s name would be splashed across newspapers in yet another sensational story.

On Friday, December 18, 1931, Ms. Gray was sound asleep in her bed. After her divorce, she remained in the bungalow at Noyac and Spring Hill roads and was renting the upper portion to boarders Steven O’Neil and William Shultz.

Ms. Gray was suddenly awakened by loud banging and the sound of voices coming from the front room. She threw on her bathrobe and ran out into the hall to find two prohibition officers and two United States Marshals in her home.

The sensational headlines were in newspapers all over Long Island: “Radio Plant at Sag Harbor Was Shore Link to Rum Row,” “Find Rum Hoard and Wireless,” “Woman and Two Men Arrested in Raid On Bungalow After Five Months Search.”

At the time of her arrest, Ms. Gray swore that she had no idea that Mr. O’Neil and Mr. Shultz were using their shortwave radio for illicit purposes. She claimed that she thought the two men were just “experimenting.” At the same time, Mr. Shultz was claiming to be a garage man and that he knew nothing of the operation.

The federal government had different information.

It all began in early November of that same year, five weeks before the raid on Ms. Gray’s home, and only 5 months after she and her husband were divorced.

The first indication that there was a bootleg operation on the East End of Long Island came when federal authorities intercepted a coded message, apparently intended for rum boats lying off the Long Island Shore. A search began in order to uncover the source of the message.

It was discovered that the station was located on Long Island and after a gradual “narrowing down” process was implemented, the agents determined the exact spot. Tests of wireless impulses indicated that the set was in the Sag Harbor area.

Afterward, a “special apparatus” was brought in and disclosed that the transmitter was concealed in a bungalow near Peconic Bay.

Around the same time agents were raiding the home of Ms. Gray, they were also searching a farm located in Cutchogue. There, they discovered “a hoard of 200 cases of Scotch liquor” in a secret compartment that was located in the barn. The farm was owned by Frank Zewenski.

Not far from the Zewenski farm, the agents discovered a well-built staircase heading from the bluff, down to the sound shore. They believed the liquor landed there in small boats and was carried up to the top of the bluff where it was then trucked to the farm and stored until needed.

Mr. Zewenski tried to concoct a story of a broken-down truck, whose driver asked to store the load in his barn for a few days but the agents had been investigating this case for weeks and were well aware of the source of the liquor and everyone’s involvement in the rum running operation—and that included Ms. Gray.

The charges against Ms. Gray were eventually dropped. And by July 1932, she had met a handsome, 29-year-old man from Southampton named Leslie Loomis.

Mr. Loomis was born in New York and was a garage mechanic and a foreman for a repair shop in Riverhead. The home he lived in, on Hill Street in Southampton, was owned by 67-year-old Emily Fritz and her 40-year-old daughter, Elizabeth. Mr. Loomis was one of two young men renting rooms in the household.

One can imagine that a young man of Mr. Loomis’s age would much prefer to spend his evenings with Ms. Gray in her bungalow, as opposed to spending his time alone in his room in the Fritz household. And, that is exactly what he did after meeting her.

According to Mr. Loomis, the couple lived together for a year and a half and had recently split up when the shooting occurred. From the reports, it appeared that Mr. Loomis was far more infatuated with Ms. Gray than she was with him.

Enter 40-year-old Matteo Di Gregorio, who became acquainted with the pretty young woman, most likely through his business. Mr. Di Gregorio, who was born on July 6, 1894 in Sicily, immigrated to America on the ship the S.S. Sant’ Anna in 1914. His records indicate that he was traveling with his brother, Antonino Di Gregorio, and their friend, Domenico Bananno.

Between 1914 and 1932, Mr. Di Gregorio became Americanized enough to go by the name of “Marty.” He was living in Sag Harbor and owned Marty’s Bathing Pavilion on Noyac Road.

Soon after meeting her, Mr. Di Gregorio was at Ms. Gray’s home as much as Mr. Loomis had been. His presence caused a feud to develop between the two men. Mr. Loomis was not going to go away easily and he harassed the couple whenever possible.

On the night of the shooting, Mr. Loomis drove to Ms. Gray’s home and crept up to an open bedroom window. He punched through the screen and seized some of Mr. Di Gregorio’s clothing, which was laying across the back of a chair. He then ran to his automobile and drove away.

Three days prior, Mr. Gregorio, fed up with Mr. Loomis’s jealous pranks, brought a shotgun to Ms. Gray’s house. On the night of the shooting, he grabbed his shotgun and went running out into the road in a rage.

Mr. Gregorio was wearing his pajama top and his white boxer shorts when he stood in the center of Noyac Road waiting for Mr. Loomis to drive by. It is at this time that Mr. Ernest and his three young companions were innocently traveling down Noyac Road, on their way home from Sunset Beach in Sag Harbor.

It is unknown what went through Mr. Di Gregorio’s mind after shooting the teen. Did he realize all too late that he had shot the wrong person? Did he believe he had shot Mr. Loomis and regret what he had done? Whatever his thoughts at the time, Mr. Di Gregorio threw the shotgun down and ran back to Ms. Gray’s bungalow, eluding even her. He donned what clothes he had left and set out through the woods, stopping only once to sleep.

The murderer eventually found shelter at the home of Mr. Robert W. Lee on Noyac Road. He emerged from the woods behind Mr. Lee’s house wearing a coat, vest and shoes, but no pants. He explained to Mr. Lee that someone had stolen his trousers while he was swimming.

When Mr. Di Gregorio was arrested, he was upstairs in the bedroom of Mr. Lee’s home borrowing a pair of trousers.

Perhaps one of the most flamboyant characters to enter this sad drama is defense attorney Samuel Leibowitz. Mr. Di Gregorio hired Mr. Leibowitz immediately after the shooting, and with good references. The lawyer was extremely well known at the time for several high-profile cases. He remained in the public eye for decades.

Mr. Leibowitz became the darling of the news media, beginning in 1922 when he was accused of blackmailing Maryland Governor Albert C. Ritchie, in an attempt to get charges against a corrupt prison official dropped.

In 1926, Mr. Leibowitz represented Al Capone in a triple murder charge. He was able to get the charges dismissed because of “insufficient Evidence” and Mr. Capone was released the very next day.

In January 1930, he made the news again when he represented gangster Max Becker, a prisoner in Auburn Prison who killed a guard during a hostage situation.

Long after Mr. Ernest’s young life ended in July 1932, Mr. Leibowitz continued to make the news and garner fame.

In 1936, he defended 31-year-old Vera Stretz in another sensational trial. She was accused of killing her married lover, Dr. Fritz Gebhardt, who was the president of a German importing firm.

That same year, the lawyer was commended for winning 114 acquittals and not losing a case in 7 years. Additionally, he created much controversy that same year by interviewing Bruno Hauptman, who was on death row for the Lindbergh baby kidnapping.

In 1937, Mr. Leibowitz defended Robert Irwin in a triple murder charge and saved him from the electric chair. The attorney successfully argued that his client was insane at the time of the killings: he had beaten and strangled three people as the result of being romantically rebuffed.

Five years earlier, in 1932, representing Mr. Di Gregorio, it was clear that Mr. Leibowitz was an extremely persuasive man. The trial lasted two days and the jury was out for four hours.

The entire defense was based on the fact that Mr. Di Gregorio was entitled to use force, if necessary, to regain his possessions. His attorney stated that the death of Mr. Ernest was the result of an accident occurring during the pursuit of Mr. Loomis.

Mr. Leibowitz continually stressed the point to the jury, that they were obligated to come back with a verdict of not guilty, if he was able to prove the accidental discharge of the weapon. To the dismay of most of the community, the jury acquitted Mr. Di Gregorio of all charges.

And so Mr. Ernest, a 19-year-old who was simply coming back from a day at the beach with his friends, was shot dead. The innocent’s fate is forever wrapped up in a sordid and convoluted affair in which he had absolutely no involvement.