The Wrong Turn

By mid-2004 Komlo, once a devoted father, had completely dropped out of the lives of his daughters: Katie, then 21; Courtney, 20; Christie, 16; and Callye, 15. Katie had been accompanying her mother to her younger sisters' parent-teacher conferences. There had been missed birthdays and graduations; tears and recriminations and counseling sessions. Jeff's parents and siblings claim that Jennifer prevented him from seeing the kids. "He worked his ass off to provide for the family," says Wendy Komlo, Jeff's sister, "and she made him look like the bad guy."

Jennifer and her daughters disagree. "That's one thing that still gets me," says Jennifer. "The Jeff I knew could not have walked away from the girls like that."

They leaned on each other and their mom for support and consolation. But they also relied on sports. For all four girls the school year had been divided not into semesters but into athletic seasons; their lives were a blur of soccer games, basketball scrimmages, field hockey practices and lacrosse games. They liked the camaraderie and the teamwork and goal-setting. But sports were also a release for their anger. They grew alligator skin.

Katie played college lacrosse at Villanova; Christie and Callye would play the sport at Delaware. Asked to list her parents for a team media guide, Katie said only that she was the daughter of Jennifer Komlo. For Christie and Callye, attending Delaware—which was not only near home but also less expensive than other schools that had recruited them—meant walking past plaques devoted to their dad's achievements and bumping into people who recalled him fondly. The girls endured comments such as, "You must be related to Jeff Komlo—how's he doing?" At first they answered tersely, withholding the fact that they'd nicknamed their missing father Osama. But eventually they decided they'd had enough. "I remember your dad," a well-wisher once remarked. "Man, what a great guy."

"Not really," snapped one daughter. "He's not."

Komlo's downward spiral accelerated in 2005. On Jan. 8, no longer working, he was charged with cocaine possession in Florida. (The man who was once famous for arriving at business engagements 10 minutes early failed to appear for his court date.) In Pennsylvania in March he was charged with assaulting Winters. According to the report filed by state police officers responding to an alarm at the Chester Springs house, "This female was curled into a ball with a fur coat covering her head. She was crying and trembling [and] related that she was hiding from Komlo out of fear." But Winters again refused to cooperate with prosecutors. Barely two weeks later, on April 15, police responded to a 911 call from Winters, entered the house in Chester Springs and found a glass vial. Komlo was charged with morphine possession. He didn't show up for his court appearance.

Around the same time, Komlo had been investigated for alleged financial fraud. His Delaware roommate and receiver Peter Bistrian had already spent two years in jail, in 1996 and '97, on federal convictions related to a $1.5 million loan fraud. The judge at his trial had characterized him as "the consummate con man." Now Bistrian was accused of masterminding a complex $1.4 million scam that defrauded a South African firm, Columbus Stainless Steel Ltd., and filtered the money through an account belonging to Komlo. Komlo cooperated with investigators, claiming he believed Bistrian had obtained the money legitimately. Komlo was not charged in the case.

Weeks later, in the summer of 2005, Bistrian was apprehended as he tried to cross into Canada carrying false identification, four cellphones, $3,700 in cash and Mapquest.com directions to Toronto International Airport. (He pleaded guilty to fraud charges and is currently in custody at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.)

Then, finally, there was the suspicious June 4 fire at the Chester Springs house. Authorities theorize that Komlo blamed Winters for his troubles—it was her calls to the cops, after all, that led to several of his arrests—and might have intended to kill her in the blaze. Jeff's siblings assert that this is reckless speculation and that Jeff had left the country by then. Calls to his cellphone went unreturned. His lawyers claimed to have no knowledge of his whereabouts. Federal marshals converged on the homes of his parents and siblings, but left convinced that they were as clueless as everyone else.

By summer's end Komlo was featured on the website of the TV program America's Most Wanted, sandwiched between a woman accused of pretending to be a deaf mute to rob stores in seven states and a Russian immigrant charged with killing an acquaintance and burying him in a backyard in Detroit. This enraged Komlo, who went so far as to call Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Kathleen Brady Shea from an undisclosed location to complain. "I'm not a criminal, and I would like to get this resolved," he said. "I'm not above any law." He made a vague reference to a vendetta against him and indicated that he would turn himself in shortly. He never did.