Dan's Papers - August 22, 2008 - The Murder In A Popular SH Nightspot

A horrible event took place at the Southampton Publick House on the night of Wednesday, August 6. It was about midnight, and it was, as usual, a very busy night, as it always is on "Ladies Night" - a tradition on Wednesdays for years and years.

Just after midnight, as the band played and people danced, a young man hopped up onto a table and began dancing. This is unacceptable at the Publick House, a very reputable and safe place in Southampton that has four strong men working as bouncers to see to it that order is kept. One of these bouncers, Andrew Reister, 40, pushed through the crowd. When he got to the table, he asked the man to get down.

What happened next is beyond belief. The man on the table, 25-year-old Anthony Oddone, did not respond to being told to get down, and the next thing anybody knew, he did get down, but with Reister in a choke hold. Some people stepped away as the two men lurched around on the floor, but others, after seeing that this choke hold was going on and on long after it might have otherwise been necessary, stepped in and tried to make him let go. Even Oddone's friends tried to stop him. But he would not stop. Indeed, Reister had slipped away into unconsciousness, but still Oddone held onto him. When he finally let go, Reister dropped to the floor.

Oddone then fled. There is no other way to describe it. Many witnesses saw it. All were busy attending to Reister on the floor, who would not wake up. 911 was called. An ambulance was called. The police were called.

When the police arrived - the Publick House is just a few hundred yards from police headquarters - Oddone's friends told them Oddone did not have his car there and would be trying to find other ways of getting home. The police called taxi companies and found that, indeed, Oddone was in a taxi, on his way to his home, which is in Farmingville. At 1 a.m., a police car pulled the cab over and had Oddone arrested.

Back at the Publick House, the paramedics put the unconscious Reister on a gurney and wheeled him out to an ambulance. At Stony Brook Hospital, where he was quickly taken, he was found to be near death, and put on life support. By the next morning, he was gone. At 11:08 a.m. on Saturday, with his wife at his side at the hospital, he was taken off life support.

Reister, according to the accounts of almost everybody who knew him, was about the nicest guy you'd ever meet. He grew up on North Sea Road, went to school in Southampton then Suffolk County Community College, and married a girl he met when coming late to a class and finding the only available seat left was next to her. Three years later, the two were wed and some years later, began a family. They had two young children. Reister loved it all. He coached a Little League team and recently celebrated his 20th wedding anniversary. He worked as a corrections officer at the Riverhead County Jail, where he headed up several groups that helped raise money for families of corrections officers in need. He worked a second job at the Publick House as a bouncer, and played golf. Friends say he could hit a ball 280 yards. He had many friends and was a gentle, giving man - and a great asset to this town. Since the incident, many corrections officers from Riverhead have comforted Stacy Reister, who has said if they had not been there for her she didn't know how she would have gotten through this hard time. "He was a wonderful husband and father and loved his kids and me," she told a reporter.

Oddone, who normally would have been taken to Riverhead jail to await charges, was instead taken to Rikers Island in New York City for his own safety, given all the friends that Reister had at the Riverhead facility.

His lawyer says that Oddone is pleading not guilty because what he did was in response to being attacked by Reister, and that he was just defending himself.

According to those who were present at the assault, Oddone did not appear to be impaired when this altercation took place. Bartenders there say he did not have too much to drink. An early charge against Oddone was first-degree assault. He will likely be further charged with second-degree murder, and is currently being held on $500,000 bail.

Oddone, from Farmingville, was attending St. Joseph's College in Patchogue, where he was a member of that school's golf team. In addition to being a student, he worked in the summer full-time as a caddy at The Bridge. He has never been in trouble before. Apparently, he has a girlfriend, and lives with her and her parents.

A man named Steve Brown, who identified himself as the father of Oddone's girlfriend, sent this e-mail to a reporter:

"Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Reister family. This incident has been a terrible tragedy. For the time that we have known Anthony, he has always been a hard worker, and was putting himself through college."

A Newsday reporter interviewed a member of the St. Joseph's College golf team. Adam Coelho, 19, said, "He's one of the nicest people I've ever met," he said. "As one of the older members of the team, he kept a watchful eye on all us younger players. If I was having a bad day, he would say 'nothing is as bad as it seems.'"

The Publick House has cancelled "Ladies Nights" until further notice.

Reister was buried at Good Ground Cemetery in Hampton Bays on Thursday, August 14.