Gauthier case growing cold?
One year after the shocking murder of Constance Gauthier in her home, police are still looking for her killer
WOONSOCKET – Except for a sheet of plywood affixed to the picture window, the flat-roof, stone bungalow at 191 Fairfield Ave. looks pretty much the same: A welcome sign bearing the image of a pug named Oliver hangs beside the front door. Colorful bird feeders, suspended from vertical rods protruding from the gravel walk, dangle high as the roofline. Early spring snow is still frozen in a small metal birdbath.
In the tiny home where she lived alone for many years, Connie Gauthier, 81, surrounded herself with the things she loved and cultivated an atmosphere of peace and tranquility.
The oasis is abandoned now, but Gauthier’s longtime neighbor, Tim Christel, still looks over at her yard sometimes and wonders who killed her.
“I don’t like living around here and having someone murdered and not knowing anything about it.” — Tim Christel, a neighbor
“This hasn’t been swept under the rug by any means. It’s an active and ongoing investigation.” — George McMann, police detective
“I don’t like living around here and having someone murdered and not knowing anything about it,” said Christel. “To have some kind of closure would be nice.”
In a brutal slaying that remains unsolved, Gauthier was found dead in her bedroom, the victim of multiple stab wounds, after she failed to answer a healthcare worker’s knock on her door – one year ago today.
Neighbors have heard all kinds of grisly details about the crime scene, but the police have declined to confirm much, saying discussion about evidence could hamper the investigation. They won’t say, for example, how many times Gauthier was stabbed, whether they’ve recovered a murder weapon, or if they’ve developed an operational theory of the killer’s possible motivation.
Was it a crime of passion? The work of a psychopathic stranger? In a gathering at nearby St. Agatha’s Church hall shortly after the homicide, police tried to calm down worried neighbors. While they stopped short of explaining how they came to the conclusion, the police described Gauthier’s killing as a case of isolated violence that wasn’t likely to be repeated.
But members of the Woonsocket Police Department say solving Gauthier’s murder remains a top priority and the subject of an active, ongoing investigation by detectives.
“Every day, it’s always on our minds,” said Detective Sgt. George McMann. “This hasn’t been swept under the rug by any means. It’s an active and ongoing investigation and it will continue to be so.”
McMann and Detective Sgt. Matt Richardson are the lead investigators in the Gauthier homicide, according to Detective Capt. Michael Lemoine.
Some pivotal aspects of the probe: police have tested multiple pieces of evidence from the crime scene for DNA. They’ve asked the FBI to take a look at the case. At one point, they entertained the notion that Gauthier’s homicide might be related to killings in other jurisdictions, including that of Stanley Stowik, 80, whose unsolved 2015 homicide remains under investigation by the Cumberland Police Department.
By all accounts, Gauthier was an unusually vivacious octogenarian who enjoyed being involved with people – but she was also someone who had few close friends. As previously reported, she was also a city official – chairwoman of the Personnel Board – whose colleagues regarded her as thorough and independentminded.
Gauthier’s youthful philosophy was summed up on the vanity plate on her car: “LIVE,” it commanded. She’d been heeding her own advice since she graduated from Woonsocket High School in 1952, when she left the area for a time and got a job in New York City as a private detective.
She was a world traveler who celebrated birthdays by getting new tattoos. No one seems to know whether she actually followed through, but she bragged about her intentions of going skydiving when turned 80.
As long as she was alive, her pledge was to learn how to do something new every year, and she appeared to be staying true to her vow because she took up the organ shortly before she died. Ironically, when police arrived to investigate her murder, there was an instructional songbook resting atop the keyboard of her instrument that was opened to the page for the spiritual, “Amazing Grace.”
Even though her pet pug Oliver had been dead for some time, the house was filled with all kind of trinkets and gewgaws paying homage to the breed that was apparently Gauthier’s favorite.
In the bedroom, police found Gauthier’s brutalized body amid signs of a violent struggle.
Police were summoned after a physical therapist who had an appointment with Gauthier knocked on the door. Before the police were called, a neighbor reportedly looked in through a window and saw part of Gauthier’s body sticking out from beneath an upturned mattress.
“It’s a real tragedy,” said Lemoine. “This elderly woman who pretty much kept to herself…she lived alone, liked to travel. But she always traveled alone. She really didn’t have a travel partner.”
For a time, the police appeared to be focusing on the same neighbor who claimed to have been the first to discover the homicide as a possible suspect.
———
Three days after the homicide, Tyler Grenon, then 21, was taken to the Clinton Street police station for questioning after he allegedly asked several neighbors for permission to look at footage from their home security cameras. As they were preparing to question him, police say Grenon ran from the interrogation room.
He managed to escape from the police station and continued running, crossing Clinton Street. When he reached the Blackstone River, he allegedly jumped in as he attempted to escape police custody. After he was recaptured, he was booked on charges of intimidating witnesses – his neighbors – obstructing police and criminal escape.
On a motion by his public defender, however, a District Court judge dismissed all the charges against Grenon last November – an indication that police did not have enough evidence to prove the allegations.
Grenon was described by police as someone with whom Gauthier had a rela- tionship that was grandmotherly. It’s unclear whether Gauthier ever married, but her obituary indicates she had no children. She apparently took an interest in the young man; neighbors said she had once tried to help him pass a test to get his driver’s license.
Although Grenon’s father continues to reside at the house next door to Gauthier’s, his son is believed to be living in Massachusetts now.
Police won’t say whether they have any interest in Grenon – or anyone else – as a possible suspect in Gauthier’s killing.
“We’re looking where the evidence is taking us, without blinders, without tunnel vision,” said Lemoine. “We’re trying to keep all our options open.”
There’s a rule of thumb in police work that says a homicide that goes unsolved for more than 48 hours grows increasingly less likely of being solved, but McMann says it’s not always true – in Woonsocket or anywhere else. All homicides are like puzzles, says McMann, and some have just a few big pieces.
Gauthier’s slaying, he says, isn’t like that.
“It’s a puzzle with lots of little pieces,” he says.
But Christel says he wishes the police would give neighbors a clear idea whether they’re making progress. Hearing so little about the case doesn’t inspire confidence that they’re moving closer to finding the killer.
He certainly hopes they know more than they’re saying.
“Maybe,” he says. “They really don’t know anything. That’s sort of disturbing, too.”