In 1993, John Murray and I worked for the Register-Citizen in Torrington: John, an award-winning photojournalist me, a 33-year-old rookie reporter, just trying to hang on. Police were not “making any conclusions as to whether the cases were connected,” but termed them a “cluster of killings.” But rumors were afloat, confirmed by police, of suspicions of “a white man in a van.” Anyone with information was asked to call state police. All four had police records-including prostitution and drugs. The woman found in Waterbury had been stabbed. The other two women found in Harwinton had been strangled. It is isolated, and four women’s bodies have been dumped here. Valley Road in Harwinton is snuggled along the Naugatuck River. And in 19 two other women’s bodies had been found in the Campville section of Harwinton, on the Litchfield border, dumped along the east bank of the Naugatuck River. Six weeks earlier, in November 1992, another woman had been found dead in Waterbury on Chase River Road. Bettancourt, 27, of Waterbury, who had been shot four times in the head. The following day the Connecticut State Police identified the body as Evelyn L. On Janua woman’s body was found off Valley Road in the Campville section of Harwinton. He’s the only one in the world who could possibly understand. I had to call John Murray (the Publisher of The Waterbury Observer) immediately.
A sudden surge of memories hit-followed by pain, regret and shame that the story was never published. I had no idea that I still had the files and notes from a huge story I had been working on when I left my job as police reporter at the Register-Citizen newspaper in Torrington, Connecticut. Printed in faded ink on the tab was the word, “Waterbury”. After my mother had died, we sold our family home of 50 years and I had a lot of boxes to rummage through.īuried deep in one box was a folder I hadn’t touched since 1993, the year I left my career in journalism. In April 2020 I was in pandemic-lock down in my Boston apartment and surrounded by unopened boxes, some that had not been peeked into for decades. Clockwise from top left is Karen Everett, Mildred Alvarado, Frederica Spinola and Jessica Muskus. Six remain unsolved, and a seventh is shrouded in unanswered questions. Since 1988 eight women have been killed along the Route 8 corridor north of Waterbury.
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