Busby Family Receives Warm Welcome At Book Signing

FALMOUTH- The Busby family came to Falmouth this week, appearing in public for the first time since John Busby was shot in the face in an ambush on Sandwich Road 29 years ago. Mr. Busby and his daughter, Cylin, have written a memoir called The Year We Disappeared about what the unsolved crime did to their family.
And hundreds of Falmouth residents came out to book signing events at Booksmith Wednesday and at Eight Cousins  Books yesterday to shake their hands and even to embrace them.
They called John Busby a hero and remarked on his courage. They gave a standing ovation to his wife, Polly. They stood in line for up to two hours Wednesday night to get their books signed.
Some, with tears in their eyes, told him where they were when they heard about the shocking crime or how they fit in to the family’s story. There was Cylin’s second grade teacher, and there was the man who built the 10-foot fence around their house after the shooting. There was a neighbor on Sandwich Road, whose children played with the Busby children, and there was the son of a police officer who had been friendly with Mr. Busby decades ago.
Among those sitting in the front row at the question-and-answer session at Booksmith Wednesday night was Loretta Gilfoy, who has an interesting connection to the story.
Ms. Gilfoy of East Falmouth is the sister of Shirley M. Reine, the wife of Melvin Reine, the man long suspected of shooting Mr. Busby. Melvin Reine has been held for several years at Taunton State Hospital with dementia.
Shirley Reine was murdered in May 2005. That crime has also not been solved.
Ms. Gilfoy has been closely following exploits of the Reine family since her sister’s murder, from the trial last fall of Melvin Reine’s son, Todd M. Reine, who was convicted of helping to steal legal papers from his stepmother, to the trial this past spring of Melvin Reine’s brother, John A. Reine, who was convicted of vandalism to a car parked at Falmouth Mall. Ms. Gilfoy was among many in the audience who had read the Busbys’ book.
After years of silence, the crime against Mr. Busby came back in the public eye after Shirley Reine’s murder when news leaked out that John Reine had confessed to an involvement in the crime, saying he drove the car while his brother, Melvin, shot Mr. Busby.
The confession came too late for charges because the statute of limitations had run out on the crime of attempted murder. Local legislators have submitted a bill to extend the statute of limitations for crimes against police officers, but the bill is in limbo because of concern it may affect other statutes of limitations.
People in the audience Wednesday night at Booksmith had a range of questions for the Busbys.
One was why they had changed the name of Melvin Reine and some others in the book.
Cylin Busby said it had been her desire to change the names because she could not bear to type Melvin Reine’s name so many times in a book about her family. “I just didn’t want the name in the book. I know that sounds petty,” Cylin Busby said.
“Not at all,” someone shouted and the audience broke out in strong applause to show their support for her actions.
Virginia L. Rabesa of Sandwich Road held up her copy of the book where she changed all the names back. “I’m giving the book to my son and I want him to know who everyone is,” she said.
Cylin Busby remarked on the warm reception from the crowd and how important it is for the family to feel that in Falmouth, the place that they have always felt is home.
John Busby said the family would live in Falmouth yet if they did not feel their lives were still in danger because the crime remains unsolved. The family has moved often since they left Falmouth in the dead of night, about a year after the shooting, not telling anyone where they were going.
“If I could, I would live here. Life is what it is,” he said. “If I thought I could live here safely I would. But I don’t.”
Several people asked Mr. Busby whether he continues to have surgeries for his jaw, which was shattered by the shotgun blasts that night almost 30 years ago. Mr. Busby said he is all through with surgery and even has a new set of teeth, since his were all destroyed in the shooting. His voice is still a bit hard to understand, but the audience hung on his every word.
“I believe I’m as repaired as I want to be,” Mr. Busby said, noting one doctor offered to give him plastic surgery. “I’ve had all the surgery I want.”
One man asked him what he thinks would have happened if he had had his service revolver with him that night.
Mr. Busby said he would have returned fire, adding with a twinkle in his eye that he would not have had to worry about damaging his car window since it had already been shattered by the blasts that came at him.
Someone asked whether writing the book was healing for Mr. Busby. “To go back to those first couple of days after the shooting...,” Mr. Busby said, then shook his head unable for a moment to continue. “No, it was not healing.”
Cylin Busby interjected, “For me, it was a healing process, definitely,” she said, adding that she felt it brought her family closer. But she said the fact that there is no justice means the family can never truly heal, nor can the other families who were victims of crimes allegedly perpetrated by Mr. Reine.
One person asked if the Busbys intend to sue the Town of Falmouth.
“It’s not the town’s fault,” Mr. Busby said. He said one attorney said if they gave him $50,000, he would find someone to sue.
“We’re done,” Mr. Busby said.
“There’s no point,” Cylin Busby added.
John Busby’s wife and Cylin’s mother, Polly Busby was given several rounds of applause. She stood up and Mr. Busby joked, “Okay, that’s your 15 minutes [of fame]. You can sit down.”
As to why they wrote the book, Cylin Busby said it was a way for them to have some form of justice, given it appears that the crime will never be solved.
John Busby was asked if he can ever get closure.
“No. As long as these people are allowed to mingle with the public. They should be shunned or whatever the Quakers would have done. No, no justice,” he shook his head, tears welling in his eyes.
The book has interest from feature film producers, Ms. Busby said, and “48 Hours” is filming a special one-hour show on the book this week.
With the question-and-answer session complete, the book signing began. It took two hours for all the books to be signed, with some people buying as many as five copies.
Among those waiting in line to have her book signed was Falmouth Police Officer Cheryl A. Atherton. The day of the shooting, August 31, 1979, was her first night on regular duty after serving as a summer police officer. She worked the evening shift that night and with word of the shooting, she and all the other patrol officers were pulled off the street. “I was in Megansett and Terry Hynes came and picked me up,” she said of a fellow officer who brought her back to the station. “We didn’t know if it was random,” she said.