Father demands truth from slain son's wife

Sara James Correspondent • Profile

SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO - Its nickname says it all -- Isla del Encanto -- the island of enchantment. With its beguiling beaches, pulsating beat and vibrant culture, Puerto Rico is a tourist favorite -- a little American paradise in the Caribbean.

But there's also a murky undertow here. It's a place where appearances can deceive, where major crimes can go unsolved. A place that can be deadly.

It was a balmy midnight in September, 2005, when San Juan police found the body of a 32-year-old man crumpled on a cobblestone street in the heart of the city's tourist district. His wife had been injured too, and rushed to the hospital. But someone had made very sure the man was dead -- he'd been stabbed multiple times, his skull crushed.

Sara James: Is that the wound that killed him?

Superintendent Toledo: Yeah. Smashed everything. Destroyed his brain.

Adam Anhang, a multi-millionaire entrepreneur originally from Canada was by all accounts an honorable man and beloved.

Glorivil Rosario: A very special human being was killed that night. He's not a dog.

Roberto Cacho: And the brutality of the murder. These guys went in to kill him and to make sure he didn't survive.

Adam was one of 766 homicides in Puerto Rico that year. This tiny commonwealth has a murder rate three times that of New York City. But anyone who thought Adam’s murder would get lost in a sea of other investigations would be wrong, because they'd have underestimated the astounding power of a parent's anguish.

Abe Anhang: Whoever did this, did they ever think I wouldn't come after them?

Just how Adam’s father Abe would do that, and where the trail would lead, would send shivers up the spines of some who were closest to Adam. Abe's relentless quest would also capture the attention of the Puerto Rican government.

But to fully understand the drive of this real estate developer, you need to know about his prize son, whom he and his wife Barbara felt certain was bound for greatness -- even from the beginning.`

Barbara Anhang: He was always very curious about everything around him. Adam would always want to carry a little brief case -- just like his dad.

Abe Anhang: I never remember him as a little boy. He was a little man.

A little man with an extraordinary eye for business. In their only TV interview, Adam’s parents told my colleague Edie Magnus that Adam spotted commercial opportunities even on family trips, like the one they toOK to the Great Wall of China.

Abe Anhang: Lo and behold, we see a man pushing what appeared to be a wheelchair. It turned out it wasn't a wheelchair. The man was a barber, and his business was-- he had his barber chair.

Edie Magnus: He had a traveling barber chair?

Abe Anhang: A traveling barber chair. And Adam said, "Now there's an idea."

In college, Adam majored in finance, naturally, and then became a top graduate student at the prestigious Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

Peter Linneman was one of Adam’s professors. He would also become one of Adam’s closest friends.

Peter Linneman: Adam Anhang was the full package. He had the intelligence that was extraordinary. He had the energy. He had the passion. He had entrepreneurship. But he also, at a very early age, understood the importance of people.

Adam wasn't long out of school when he launched several successful businesses, including an internet gambling site, which helped make him a multi-millionaire.

Adam's achievements also helped make him one of his alma mater's favorite guest lecturers.

(Adam lecturing)

How many men in this room are single? How many women do you have to ask before they agree to go out with you? OK, the nature of being an entrepreneur is that you're constantly pitching some idea. I know you're very successful--

But as visionary as Adam was about business, professor Linneman said that his young friend was horribly shortsighted when it came to Romance.

Peter Linneman: He had a capacity of getting himself into situations that weren't going to end well relationship-wise.

Video   'Adam loved to teach' Abe and Barbara Anhang reminisce about their son's entrepreneurship and his love of teaching. Dateline NBC

Adam did have a college sweetheart but even that toOK a miserable turn. Just two weeks after the then 23-year-old boy-wonder married his college sweetheart, she dropped a bombshell.

Abe Anhang: The young lady told Adam that she had made a mistake, and she didn't want to be married anymore.

Barbara Anhang: He was absolutely devastated.

Abe Anhang: Possibly explains his addiction to work afterwards.

In addition to his own ventures, Adam traveled worldwide as a financial analyst and problem solver.

That's how he met Janice Vallely. He helped the now-retired Miami hotelier refinance her business. Typical of Adam, he also gained a friend and confidant.

Janice Vallely: I think that was very much the core of our friendship.

Theirs would prove to be a fateful connection.

Sara James: What toOK him to Puerto Rico?

Janice Vallely: I did.

Even today, it still haunts Janice that she steered Adam to a business venture there in December 2000.

Janice Vallely: There was nothing in his life that would have ever brought him into that arena except that phone call that I made to him.

Sara James: Are you saying that you feel responsible?

Janice Vallely: I feel accountable.

(Adam lecturing)

Along with a partner, we control about $200 million dollars in real estate in Puerto Rico.

From the moment Adam set foot in Puerto Rico, he was swept away by the island and its real estate potential.

Barbara Anhang: He said, "LoOK at that skyline, mom and dad. It loOKs like a big smile, doesn't it? But with some teeth missing. And you know what I’d like to do? I'd like to fill in the teeth with my projects, and make the smile full again."

Roberto Cacho: We were going to go and conquer the world...

Roberto Cacho was Adam’s business partner in Puerto Rico. He said that while they made beautiful business together, the island proved to be an awkward social fit for the younger man.

Roberto Cacho: I think he was lonely here at first. Adam moved here, didn't have a friend of his own other than mine.

That changed the night in 2003 when Adam met a lively local woman in a bar. Soon after, Adam introduced 23-year-old Aurea Vasquez, a one-time beauty pageant contestant, to his parents, who were visiting the island.

Barbara Anhang: She was a very attractive young woman.

Abe Anhang: She knew how to talk business, which was something that attracted Adam, I’m sure.

Adam's younger sister Becky also met her once.

Becky: I think that she was a lot of fun. And that he was working very hard in Puerto Rico and that he liked being with someone who was a lot of fun to hang out with when he had the time to have fun.

Had true love finally come to Adam Anhang? He and Aurea moved in to a big house together in late 2004. Adam even bought her a small restaurant in old San Juan to manage called Pink Skirt. In March 2005, they married in a small civil ceremony.

Abe Anhang: We found out about it after he was married, about a month after.

Edie Magnus: He didn't tell you ahead of time?

Abe Anhang: No, he didn't. It was a surprise.

Print this Email this Blog this  IM this

MORE FROM CRIME STORIES

Crime stories Section Front

Death and the Beauty Queen Prosecutor's mysterious death still unsolved Doctor accused of overdosing lover Inside private world of polygamist ranch Prime suspect: Follow the clues Murder in the family Girls theory persists in Poplar murder case Amazing crimes caught on tape Driver says he didn't kill Greenwich developer Billionaire's mysterious death in Monte Carlo Crime stories Section Front   Add Crime stories headlines to your news reader: