Wife's 911 call guided police to deadly scene

It was 9:15 p.m. and 48 seconds on Friday when Amy Ciesla called 911 from her Cape Coral home.

By the time Cape Coral police traced the call and arrived at the scene 7 minutes and 36 seconds later, her father and aunt were dead, killed by her estranged husband, Thomas Ciesla, a former Collier corrections officer who then turned his gun on himself. Her uncle was shot in the hand.

A transcript of the 911 tape was released Tuesday.

Deputy Chief Jay Murphy said 911 operators heard a female voice say, “Please put the gun down.”

At 9:17 a male voice asks, “You want me to shoot you?”

Then “... Shoot you ...”

As the operator monitored the open line, the cell phone call was traced.

“Because it was a cell phone and not a residence, either it shows the last latitude and longitude of the cell phone or it defaults to the cell tower,” said Murphy. “This defaulted to the cell tower behind the Circle K on Country Club.”

The tower is not far from the house at 1021 S.W. 10th Terrace where Thomas Podejko, 63, and Carol Lindner, 62, died. But far enough. Officers were dispatched to the vicinity of the tower. Operators called Verizon for the name and address of the subscriber: Amy Ciesla. Though the phone had a New Jersey area code, the company had the local address.

Dispatchers, having heard muffled words such as “gun” and “shoot,” called for an ambulance at 9:19. By 9:20 they had the address and sent more officers to the house.

At 9:24 Amy Ciesla’s call ended.

“We believe the voice we hear at 9:24 is Amy,” Murphy said.

“I’ve called 911,” she says, and the call disconnects.

At almost that exact moment, Murphy said, the first officer arrived on the scene. Almost immediately he calls that he is hearing shots fired.

In 2001 the FCC mandated that cellular telephone providers start including global positioning — or GPS — technology in new cell phones to enhance 911 operations nationwide.

“It’s a satellite-based solution,” said Nanci Schwartz, a spokeswoman for Sprint. “The satellite is looking for a chip that has been embedded in the handset.”

But for the GPS technology to work, the 911 organization has to have the appropriate technology, she said.

“There are still 911 operations in the U.S. that don’t have this yet,” Schwartz said.

Lee County has technology that allows 911 dispatchers to locate a call based on its proximity to cell phone towers but does not have the technology to identify the exact address from which a call is coming, said Lt. Robert Forrest, a spokesman for the Lee County Sheriff’s Office.

Murphy said the goal is to arrive at any call in five minutes or less. He stressed that someone calling 911 from a cell phone can only expect responders to pinpoint a location without help about half the time.

“Just because you dial 911 on a cell phone doesn’t mean we’ll know where you’re at,” he said.

Murphy said he thought it amazing that the officers had managed to reach the house as fast as they did. He said even had a land line call given them the exact address right away, they might not have been much quicker.

“Friday night was busy,” he said.

Chuck Hamby, a corporate spokesman for Verizon, said most cell phones sold nowadays have GPS capability and said it is important that people have a phone with that capability.

“No matter whose store you go in, it’s an important question to ask when you’re shopping for a phone,” Hamby said. “It should just become more and more prevalent. There’s no reason not to include the technology in future handsets.”

Collier County Sheriff Don Hunter said Monday there were no signs that Thomas Ciesla was suicidal. Ciesla resigned as a corrections officer at the Immokalee Jail Center on June 20. He had worked for the Sheriff’s Office since Feb. 17, 2004.

Cape Coral police believe Ciesla was distraught over his impending divorce and because his application to join the Cape Coral Police Department had been denied, officials said.

Jennifer Truglio, of Stewartsville, N.J., said she went to high school with both Thomas and Amy Ciesla. The couple were not dating in high school, Truglio recalled, and said she hasn’t seen the two for nearly a decade.

“When I heard they were married I thought they were a good couple,” she said. “They were very polite and they never caused any trouble for anybody.”

Truglio, 28, said she and a two of her former classmates have been planning their 10-year reunion, and intended to invite both Thomas and Amy Ciesla. She said she was shocked to hear about Friday’s murder-suicide.

“I cannot say one bad thing about Tom,” Truglio said. “He talked to everybody, but never really went to parties. He never was on anybody’s bad side. But that was 10 years ago and people do change.”

Thomas Lindner, Amy Ciesla’s uncle, remained in good condition at Lee Memorial Hospital on Tuesday, but declined an interview.