Lindsey mom: 'Every child that came into his life loved him'

April 15, 2007
By JESSICA RYEN DOYLE

UTICA – At 9:12 p.m. Thursday Lisa Karpowich got a text message from her boyfriend, Officer Thomas Lindsey.

“He texted me, ‘how are you doing?’” Karpowich, 34, said. “I texted him back and I never heard from him. I thought he was just real busy.”

Eight minutes after he sent that final text message, Lindsey was dying, the victim of a shooting in Utica’s Cornhill neighborhood.

Karpowich, joined by Lindsey’s mother, Carmella Lindsey-Schisler, and other family members spoke publicly for the first time Saturday of the man they loved during an interview at Lindsey’s aunt’s house on Warren Street in Utica.

Karpowich said breaking the news of Lindsey’s death to her children, Tyler, 7, and Kylee, 4, was difficult.

“When he was with them, they felt as if he was their best friend,” she said. “He was Tyler’s wrestling partner, his bud. Kylee called him ‘My Tom.’”

“Every child that came into his life loved him,” said Lindsey-Schisler, 54, who lives in Mohawk. “And he loved them.”

Karpowich said she and Lindsey enjoyed traveling together during their two-year relationship. They planned to go to Jamaica this summer and wanted to take Tyler and Kylee to Hershey Park in Pennsylvania.

“That’s why he did what he did,” Karpowich said, referring to Lindsey’s six-year stint in the Marines. “He wanted to see the world.”

Lindsey joined the Marines when he was 18, Lindsey-Schisler said.

Soon after enlisting, the avid bodybuilder called home to tell his mother that his muscles were so large he couldn’t fit into his uniform.

“You could joke with him, but being a friend is what he did best,” Lindsey-Schisler said.

Lindsey’s stint in the Marines brought him to South Korea and Australia. When he came home from overseas service, he attended and graduated from Mohawk Valley Community College.

He had the choice to work for the New York State Police or the Utica Police Department, said Lindsey’s brother, Arthur Lindsey, 30.

“He stayed here because this is where he grew up,” Lindsey said.

Karpowich and Lindsey’s family members said they constantly worried about Thomas Lindsey’s safety.

Their concerns were heightened after the shooting death of New Hartford police Officer Joseph Corr in February 2006.

“His whole thought process was he knew there were risks, but he wanted to protect,” Karpowich said.

That’s why it touched the Lindsey family when Kathy and David Corr, parents of Joseph Corr, stopped by Saturday to offer their condolences.

“They explained to her (Carmella) that they know how she feels,” said David Bumbolo, Lindsey’s cousin. “They are very respectable people.”

“I wanted to know what to expect,” Lindsey-Schisler said. “I can’t thank them enough.”

Ellie