As she did almost every day, Dorothy Royal slipped on her blue coat yesterday morning and pulled her small wire cart across the city, collecting bottles and cans along the way that she would trade for pocket change.
Royal stopped at the apartment of her close friend, Joyce Terry, and they chatted over coffee and shared some laughs. For Royal, a 59-year-old mother of three adult children, the morning coffee ritual would be her last.
A short time later, according to Albany city police, Royal was beaten and sexually assaulted by a former boxing heavyweight contender, Jo-el Scott. He has been charged with her murder.
The attack unfolded at about 8 a.m. after Royal said goodbye to Terry and pulled her cart through Lincoln Park in Albany under beaming sunlight. The air was crisp and morning joggers and a few lifeguards who were working on the park's pool were buzzing around the hilly, 58-acre park.
As Royal descended a set of steep, concrete steps under trees and at the edge of a rugby field, she was allegedly confronted by Scott, 33, a former amateur boxing champion whose meteoric rise through the professional ranks had once ignited the region's fight fans.
Scott, a convicted rapist who prosecutors contend was high on crack cocaine following an all-night binge, allegedly grabbed Royal and began pummeling her, breaking bones in her face as he sodomized her on the ground. A passer-by heard Royal's screams and called 911, but two arriving officers who said they saw Scott standing over her body were unable to prevent her death.
Scott ran about 50 yards with the officers on his heels but was quickly handcuffed after a brief struggle. He was allegedly covered in Royal's blood.
Detectives quickly swarmed the park and crime-scene technicians sealed off the area around Royal's body. But just over the hill, Royal's friends and her youngest child, 39-year-old Mary Ann Royal, gathered on the steps in front of their apartments chatting and oblivious of the events unfolding nearby.
When told of the attack just after 10 a.m., Mary Ann Royal and Terry, who said she has known Dorothy Royal for almost 40 years, both began crying.
"I thought you were going to tell us she had a seizure, because she's a diabetic and suffers seizures," Terry said. "She comes and drinks coffee with me almost every morning and I give her some of my bottles and then she goes upstairs and collects some more."
The park's lifeguards said they would see Royal almost every morning making her slow trip through the park searching the high grass for bottles and cans that she'd drop in her small cart. She moved to Albany from Virginia about 40 years ago and had been living with her oldest child, Margaret, 42.
"She was kind to everybody," said Dorothy Royal's nephew, Jeffrey Philpot.
Prosecutors and police charged Scott with first-degree murder, first-degree sodomy and resisting arrest after interviewing witnesses.
On his arrest sheet Friday, Scott listed his occupation as "boxer."
But the promise of boxing stardom ended for Scott in October 1996 when he was sentenced to a 6-year prison term for rape and an unrelated car crash in which he left the scene of an accident that put a 4-year-old boy in a coma for several days.
In March 1999, Scott was denied his first attempt at parole when the review board ruled: "Your violent sexual behavior leads this board to conclude your release presents a serious risk to the public's safety."
The following year, in June 2000, Scott was paroled from prison. But his freedom was short-lived and 11 months later he was returned to prison after an undisclosed parole violation, according to state officials. In January 2002, he was released from prison a second time and his parole supervision expired four months later.
Since then, he apparently has lived in Albany's South End, where he grew up and where his mother, Rose, still lives.
At the arraignment, Scott's clothes had been taken from him for evidence and he stood emotionless before City Court Judge Thomas Keefe. Scott, who is powerfully built and stands 6 feet 2 inches, said nothing as Keefe ordered him held without bail pending a review of the case on Tuesday by a grand jury.
It's not clear if Scott knew Royal, who friends said was soft-spoken and never married. She once worked in day care, but in recent years scraped by returning bottles and with help from her family, her relatives said.
Scott grew up in the city's scruffy South End with his three brothers and two sisters. He was the oldest sibling and his father was not around when he was growing up, his relatives have said.
Mayor Jerry Jennings, a former Albany High School assistant principal who knew Scott when he attended classes there, enthusiastically followed his boxing successes like many other local elected officials.
Jennings, who drove to Lincoln Park just as Royal's body was removed by a coroner, said he still knew Scott enough to say "hi" when they met in passing.
Vladimir Koshnitsky, who was Scott's trainer during his amateur career and the early days of his professional career, was shocked when he heard the news.
"I can't talk about it, I'm speechless," said Koshnitsky, the director of the Albany City Boxing Program. "I have not seen him in a long time. I have to swallow this before I say anything."
As an amateur, Scott had a record of 23-3, winning the super heavyweight division at the 1993 U.S. Amateur Boxing championships in Colorado Springs. He then turned pro, winning his first 16 fights before finishing 20-2, with 19 knockouts. His last fight was Aug. 26 at the Sandia Casino in Albuquerque, N.M. He lost by technical knockout to Ray Austin.
Bruce Trampler, the matchmaker for Top Rank Inc. in Las Vegas, which once promoted Scott's career along with fighters such as Oscar De La Hoya, Tommy Hearns, Sugar Ray Leonard and George Foreman, was stunned by Scott's arrest.
"This is a shocker," Trampler said from his Las Vegas office. "Early on we thought he had a chance to really make a name for himself in the heavyweight division; he certainly had the capability to beat a lot of guys. I mean, I am not going to pass judgment on him because I know he had a lot of issues. Anything bad that would happen to him, that would not surprise me."
When Scott was signed by Top Rank, its president, Bob Arum, predicted big things.
"Remember his name, because very soon everyone in the world will know who he is."
Jo-el Scott: throw away the damn key!
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Dutch Windmill
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