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Friend says he ratted on suspect

 
Published Sept. 6, 1996|Updated Sept. 16, 2005

The power of a subpoena transcends friendship. That is the lesson William B. Anderson Jr. says he learned after keeping a murder confession from his best friend a secret for more than six months.

Anderson returned to his Stuart home Wednesday after a quick trip to New Jersey to tell his best friend's son face-to-face that it was he who fingered Alan Mackerley for murder charges.

"What I had to tell (Mackerley's son) was such a shock to begin with, when I left he was in tears," said Anderson, the man investigators referred to as the "confidential source" in the slaying of New Jersey businessman Frank Lee Black, 58.

Though investigators did not reveal Anderson's identity, the Stuart resident said he is the source who told investigators Mackerley had confessed to him three days after Black's disappearance in February.

"I carried it with me for six months," Anderson said, referring to what he said was Mackerley's detailed confession of shooting Black in the head in February, wrapping the body and gun in a plastic bag and tossing them from his boat into the Atlantic Ocean off Stuart. Black's body was never found.

Mackerley is held without bail, as is his girlfriend Lisa Costello, who was found in contempt for refusing to discuss the case with prosecutors.

Anderson said he didn't reveal Mackerley's confession to investigators until they subpoenaed him to testify Aug. 6.

"The power of a subpoena is an amazing thing," he said. "I could go to jail with Lisa Costello or go to jail for perjury."

Costello has been in jail without bail since June.

Investigators say Costello lured Black to West Palm Beach for Mackerley under the guise of discussing a business deal for him to convert 60 vans to buses.

Anderson said he decided to talk to investigators when faced with their subpoena.

"I'm not trying to suggest that they strong-armed me, because they didn't. They were gentlemen," he said of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and FBI agents who questioned him about Black's disappearance.

Mackerley's son, Alan "Bud" Mackerley Jr., has been running his father's company, Byram Bus Lines, in Stanhope, N.J., since his father was arrested last week on charges he kidnapped and murdered his bitter business rival in February.

Anderson, 64, a pilot who flew Mackerley's plane, also owned a bus company in New Jersey before retiring to Stuart about eight years ago.

"That man (Mackerley) was my best friend," Anderson said, his voice cracking. They had known each other since 1975, he said.

In the mid-1980s Anderson owned Galin Transportation Co. in Morristown, N.J., about 30 miles from the competing companies that Black owned in Andover Township and Mackerley owned in Stanford, N.J.

Anderson told investigators his friend described holding Black in a headlock and shooting him in the head in the living room of his Stuart home.