Convicted murderer to be paroled
Former Cohoes man to be freed quarter-century after killing pregnant teen in Troy apartment
TROY, N.Y. » One of two men convicted in the grisly 1993 murder of a pregnant 15-year-old girl inside a 9th Street apartment is scheduled to be freed early next year after being granted parole.
A state Parole Board agreed after an Oct. 11 hearing to free Joseph Poette, 47, formerly of Cohoes, after serving nearly 24 years of a 25-years-to-life sentence for his role in the murder and subsequent mutilation of 15-yearold Antoinette Strope inside the apartment of Daniel Rondeau, who was Strope’s boyfriend and the father of her unborn child.
Rondeau also went before the parole board Wednesday, but his application was denied, according to state records, but the fact that either man was freed was disturbing to Assemblyman and Rensselaer County executive candidate Steven McLaughlin, R-Troy. McLaughlin also called for a review of the board’s decision on Poette.
“This was a horrific crime that involved depraved and inhumane acts by the two individuals convicted of the murde,” he said Thursday. “How one of these individuals can now be deemed worthy of parole is beyond me.
This release is an insult to the victim’s family and the public as a whole.”
Police said back in 1993 that Strop was pregnant with Rondeau’s child and was threatening to have Rondeau, then 25, arrested on statutory rape charges unless he married her. On Feb. 15, 1993, Rondeau, had Strop come to his apartment, claiming he was in trouble, but when she arrived, he attacked her. Poette, then 22, walked in on Rondeau trying to suffocate Strop by holding his hands over her nose and mouth and tied a necktie around her neck while Rondeau punched her in the head.
The men then dragged Strobe’s dead body into the bathroom, where they dismembered her using a hacksaw, putting the pieces them in garbage bags and burying them in a field in Berlin.
Testimony at Poette’s trial from a witness who was inside the apartment suggested the killers were joking about the murder, which they matter-of-factly planned so Rondeau could avoid supporting a child he did not want and would be free to see another teenager with whom he was already involved. Police arrested Rondeau and Poette days later, after a person present during the disposal of her body contacted authorities. At the time, detectives described the murder as the most gruesome they could recall.
Rondeau pleaded guilty after he was found competent to stand trial despite years of being in and out of psychiatric care. At sentencing, Rensselaer County Court Judge Patrick McGrath called Rondeau a “menace to society” in handing down the maximum sentence for seconddegree murder, 25 years to life.
Poette was convicted at trial soon after, despite claiming he walked into the bedroom over after Antoinette was dead and that helped to dispose of the body only after Rondeau threatened to kill him.
After the killing, neighbors claimed Rondeau whipped girls to the point of screaming in his apartment at 335 Ninth St., and his estranged wife said he would tie her up and force her to have sex with other men. Acquaintances of Rondeau and Poette told The Record in 1993 the pair had once bought rope and gloves for a planned attack on a romantic rival of Poette, but the plan was foiled.
More than 15 years later, Rondeau attempted to confess to several other murders in letters to both Troy and state police, but detectives in 2010 cast doubts about the validity of his claims and he said little to detectives who met with him at the maximum-security Auburn Correctional Facility.
Poette has served the entirety of his sentence at the medium-security Woodbourne Correctional Facility, where, according to a blog posted by his son, Joseph Jr., in 2013, he married his prison counselor. Rondeau, meanwhile, is now housed at the medium-security Fishkill Correctional Facility.
Rondeau’s sister, Mary, then 21, was also charged with first-degree hindering prosecution