2010 Was An Intense And Memorable Year For Newtown’s Emergency Services

By Andrew Gorosko

It was an eventful year in emergency services, with a string of serious incidents occurring in 2010, with some people in the field saying it made for their busiest, most intense year in memory.

On April 14, while cleaning an efficiency apartment situated on the ground level of a barn at 89 Poverty Hollow Road, the property’s current owners made a grisly find.

They discovered what would later be identified as the skeletal remains of Elizabeth Gough Heath, which someone had surreptitiously placed within a dry well hidden beneath the flooring in the apartment’s kitchen.

The chief state’s medical examiner’s office later determined that Ms Heath’s homicide was caused by a “blunt traumatic head injury,” or a forceful blow to the head. Town police, aided by state police, are actively investigating her death as a crime.

Ms Heath, 30, had lived at the scenic Poverty Hollow Road property until she was reported missing on April 6, 1984, by her husband John Heath.

Town police and state police, on April 29, executed a search/seizure warrant at Mr Heath’s current Bridgewater rental home. About ten town and state police staffers conducted evidence collection at the 5 Keeler Road home for forensic analysis. Police have declined to say what they were looking for at the property.

John and Elizabeth Heath had been involved in divorce proceedings when Mr Heath reported Ms Heath as missing to the Newtown police.

Police had considered the disappearance of Ms Heath a “cold case,” or a probe into which the investigatory leads had grown cold, until April 14, when the discovery of her skeletal remains provided fresh information for their investigation. The Heaths were married in May 1978. They had one child, Meghann, who was born in September 1979.

Following Ms Heath’s disappearance, Mr Heath obtained a divorce on the grounds of desertion. In 1985, Mr Heath remarried, with his new wife, Raquel, later legally adopting his daughter.

In 2000, the probate court declared Elizabeth Heath as “presumed dead.”

John Heath was an owner of the Poverty Hollow Road property from 1973 to 2005. In 2005, that property went into foreclosure, with Mr Heath then moving to Bridgewater.

Mr Heath has indirectly declined comment on his wife’s death.

Untimely Death

In another untimely death, the lifeless body on Danielle Jacobsen, 17, of Tunnel Road was found in a small, shallow pond at a Monroe condominium complex last Memorial Day weekend.

An autopsy indicated that she died an accidental death caused by asphyxia due to drowning. The autopsy report added that Ms Jacobsen’s ingestion of the hallucinogenic drug dimethyltryptamine, also known as DMT, constituted “a significant condition contributing to death, but not resulting in the underlying cause.”

Ms Jacobsen ingested DMT at a gathering in a condo unit at Northbrook Condominiums off Route 25, after which her body was found in the pond on the morning of May 30.

In connection with that incident, a Texas man in October pleaded guilty in Bridgeport Superior Court to one count of distributing a hallucinogenic substance.

Quentin Ham, 23, of North Richland Hills, Texas, pleaded guilty to the drug offense in a plea agreement which Ham’s attorney had reached with the state.

Ham, a former Newtown resident, allegedly supplied the DMT that some people at the gathering ingested.

Under the terms of the pending agreement, which would be subject to final approval by a judge, Ham would receive a ten-year prison sentence, which would be suspended after he serves five years of prison time. Ham would serve probation after leaving prison.

Ham reserves the right to argue for a lesser sentence when his sentencing hearing occurs in court on January 7, 2011. Ham was being held this week on $200,000 bail at Bridgeport Correctional Center.

Pedestrian Fatality

In August, police arrested a Waterbury woman on a warrant, charging her with negligent homicide with a motor vehicle, and three other vehicular offenses, stemming from the death of Ridgefield man following a January 14 motor vehicle accident in Hawleyville.

Police said they served the warrant against Trisia Hernandez, 27, at her MacArthur Drive home in Waterbury. Ms Hernandez also was charged with failure to avoid colliding with a pedestrian, failure to drive in the proper lane, and traveling unreasonably fast.

Ms Hernandez, who is free on bail, has pleaded not guilty to charges. She is next scheduled to appear in court on January 26, 2011.

Pedestrian Kenneth C. Bailin, 51, of Crest Road in Ridgefield died as a result of injuries he received in the accident.

At about 2:38 pm on January 14, Mr Bailin was outside of his 2002 GMC Sonoma pickup truck, which was parked on the paved northbound road shoulder of Hawleyville Road (Route 25), near its intersection with Covered Bridge Road, as Ms Hernandez was driving a 2000 Pontiac Sunfire coupe northward there, according to police. The Pontiac then struck both Mr Bailin and the pickup truck.

Mr Bailin received serious head and leg injuries in the accident. He was pronounced dead the next day at Danbury Hospital, where he had been taken for treatment following the accident.

After the accident, Ms Hernandez was treated for head and neck pain at Danbury Hospital and then released.

Bank Incidents

In July, Newtown police served multiple felony arrest warrants against Shane Parsons, 36, formerly of Bonnie Brae Drive, charging him with 26 criminal offenses stemming from 13 incidents in Newtown, including the June 17 robbery of Newtown Savings Bank on Main Street, and also the June 13 robbery of the GameStop electronic game store at Sand Hill Plaza on South Main Street.

Parsons, who has about 55 criminal charges pending against for various alleged crimes, was being held this week on $861,500 bail at the MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Suffield for upcoming court appearances.  

In the Newtown Savings Bank robbery, police charged Parsons with first-degree robbery, conspiracy to commit first-degree robbery, second-degree larceny, and conspiracy to commit second-degree larceny.

The charges filed against Parsons in the GameStop robbery are first-degree robbery, conspiracy to commit first-degree robbery, second-degree larceny, and conspiracy to commit second-degree larceny.

In an as-yet unsolved crime, police reported that an unknown burglar or burglars were able to enter the Newtown Savings Bank’s branch office at Sand Hill Plaza by cutting a hole through the bank’s roof when it was closed for business during the early morning hours of Saturday, May 29.

The hole in the roof was cut above the small windowless room situated directly behind the bank’s automatic teller machine (ATM), which is positioned inside the bank’s vestibule, according to police. The intruder or intruders were not able to open up the ATM to get money out of the device, police have said.

It remains unclear, however, what items the burglar or burglars were able to steal from the bank.

Police Under Investigation

Danbury police are investigating on behalf of Newtown police possible criminal activity by two Newtown police officers who were placed on paid administrative leave in mid-October after an unspecified but “significant” amount of Newtown Police Union funds were determined to be missing from union financial accounts.

When Officer Andrew Stinson, 34, and Sergeant Domenic Costello, 32, were placed on paid leave, they surrendered their police badges, police identification, and police-issued handguns.

Officer Stinson and Sgt Costello formerly served as the police union’s president and treasurer, respectively.

Officer Stinson had been the police department’s dog handler, controlling the actions of German shepherd Baro while on patrol during the second work shift. Officer Felicia Figol has been named at the department’s new dog handler.

Simultaneous with the Danbury police investigation of Officer Stinson and Sgt Costello, Newtown police are conducting an internal affairs probe into their activities.

Both Officer Stinson and Sgt Costello have had prominent roles at the police department.

Officer Stinson joined the police department in July 2001. He often demonstrated the police dog’s skills to various community groups. The policeman received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Western Connecticut State University in 1998.

Sgt Costello became a town police officer in October 2003. He was promoted to the rank of sergeant in May 2009. A former school resource officer, Sgt Costello has conducted the police department’s Citizen Police Academy program. The free annual program provides the public with an overview of local enforcement as it relates to the criminal justice system. The sergeant holds a law degree.

House Fires

A fast-moving fire early on the morning of Sunday, November 14, destroyed a large Colonial-style farmhouse at Zoar Ridge Stables in Sandy Hook, forcing the building’s five residents to flee the burning building, which later disintegrated amid towering flames.

The following morning, three town fire investigators picked through the charred debris of what had been an attached garage at the 3,600-square-foot house at the 30-acre property that overlooks Lake Zoar. Only two tall masonry chimneys remained standing amid the building’s fire-blackened remains.

Resident Brian Sullivan, who discovered the fire, explained the incident to the fire investigators.

After hearing a noise, Mr Sullivan, who had been upstairs at about 4:50 am, went down to the attached garage to check for possible problems.

On opening the door between the house and garage, he was physically stunned by a blast of heat and smoke discharged by an intense fire underway within the garage.

Mr Sullivan ran upstairs to alert his wife Annette and their daughters Emma and Laura of the blaze and to get them out of the burning building. Mr Sullivan also went to the basement where he warned tenant Bruce Kinnaman to get out of the building.

All five people got out of the house safely. Mr Sullivan later was checked at Danbury Hospital for smoke inhalation, after which he was released.

The home’s residents have relocated to other living quarters on the horse farm.

Fire investigators have determined that the blaze, which caused more than $700,000 of damage, likely was caused by an electrical malfunction within the garage that was attached to the house, according to the town fire marshal.

Firefighters from many surrounding fire companies made a massive response to the blaze. Also, fire investigators have listed as “undetermined” the origin of a fire that destroyed a vacant 1,586-square-foot Cape-style house at 24 Valley Field Road South in Sandy Hook overnight on November 4-5. The fire, in which there were no injuries, caused more than $300,000 in property damage.

The fire so thoroughly damaged the premises that it was not possible to determine where the blaze started or how it began, according to fire officials.

That fire was unusual because it went unnoticed while underway and was discovered the following morning by a workman who went to the scene to make some repairs to damage that had been caused by a burglary.

Both police and fire officials investigated that fire.

As in the house fire at Zoar Ridge Stables, only two chimneys were left standing at Valley Field Road South house fire. That road is a long dead-end street that extends northward from Old Green Road.

Fire officials expect that the fire went unnoticed because the house is in an isolated area and rainy overnight weather conditions obscured the blaze.

Also, on February 2, an accidental fire extensively damaged a ranch-style house at 10 Deerfield Drive in Sandy Hook while its owner was away from the property. The blaze caused an estimated $250,000 of damage. About 90 firefighters responded to the daytime incident.

Also, on May 9, an accidental nighttime fire at an apartment in a converted antique barn at 40-A Chestnut Hill Road in Sandy Hook caused more than $100,000 in damage to the premises.  

Tenant James Jarvis, who had been sleeping in the apartment, fortunately escaped injury after the building accidentally caught fire and was heavily damaged.

In sphere of meteorology, Newtown had its share of adverse weather during 2010.

Notable were the heavy rains of late March that prompted the town to issue automated “Code Red” emergency telephone calls to selected areas. The town placed those calls to 120 telephone numbers in the area of Turkey Hill Road, Turkey Hill Terrace, Little Brook Lane, Nearbrook Drive, and River Run.

The call explained that the potential for bridge flooding at Turkey Hill Road resulted in the decision to temporarily link two adjacent turnaround circles on dead-end roads in the area to provide an emergency access way to the neighborhood.