With murder suspect on the loose, residents say police didn’t warn them
Hartford — It did not take long for word to spread around Willington on the Friday morning of May 22 that something awful had happened on Mirtl Road.
There were police and ambulance sirens, a Life Star helicopter and crime scene tape. Bits of information soon began to show up on social media.
The scene was horrific. Two men had been assaulted with a samurai sword about 9 a.m. Ted DeMers, 62, a well-known local woodworker and former Marine, died of his injuries. An 80-year-old neighbor who went to DeMers’ aid was badly injured and taken to a hospital. The suspected killer, Peter Manfredonia, had fled the scene.
More than two hours would pass — and a suspected violent killer would be on the loose in the neighborhood— before police would release any details about the bloody attack that killed DeMers and injured the elderly man.
Within a day, Manfredonia would take another man hostage at his home in the neighborhood and threaten him overnight before fleeing, police said.
“I just can’t understand how the state police wouldn’t believe that other people would be in danger from this individual given what he had just done,” said Willington resident Scott Anderson, who learned of the crime from a family friend who saw something on Facebook. “I live … a quarter- to a halfmile through the woods from where the incident on Mirtl Road happened. My daughter was in the front yard in a hammock doing her homework.
Had he fled on foot, he could have been at my house in less than 10 minutes.”
State police, who did not respond to a request for comment, have told residents that they struggled with how much information to release, fearing that Manfredonia was monitoring social media.
A month after Manfredonia’s capture, Anderson said his daughter is still afraid to lie in the hammock.
In the aftermath of the violence on Mirtl Road — the first episode in a six-day crime spree that police say also resulted in the death of a Derby man, the abduction of a woman, multiple vehicle thefts and a multistate manhunt that ended with Manfredonia’s arrest in Maryland — Willington residents continue to ask why state police did not warn them sooner that a suspected killer was loose in their community.
Witnesses at the crime scene told state police the attacker sped off on a red sport motorcycle and gave a description of what the man was wearing. That motorcycle was found about 12:45 p.m. May 22, abandoned on Old Town Road in Willington, about five miles from the crime scene, and police determined it was registered to Manfredonia.
About noon, state police in Willington held a briefing for reporters from newspapers and TV stations who had flocked to the scene.
A state police spokesman gave a description of the motorcycle and the rider’s clothing and helmet, and said: “Although this appears to be an isolated incident, we’re asking everyone to just remain vigilant. There’s no reason to believe that anyone in the surrounding neighborhood is in any type of imminent harm but we are asking the neighboring public to remain vigilant.”
“Isolated incident” is a term police typically use when a crime or incident involves people who are known to each other, such as a domestic violence crime. That wasn’t the case on Mirtl Road. Manfredonia was a stranger to the victims, although police believe Manfredonia was headed to the Mirtl Road home of a woman who had recently ended a relationship with him.
As it turned out, Manfredonia was still in Willington. Town residents were very much at risk.
About 5:15 a.m. Saturday, May 23, a 73-year-old Willington man was awakened suddenly by Manfredonia. The 23-year-old was holding a gun to the man’s head, shouting and threatening to “blow my (expletive) brains out,” according to court documents.
The man would later tell police it appeared to him that Manfredonia had spent part of the night in the woods.
The home invasion victim had heard about the killing and took steps to protect himself, locking his doors and having a gun at the ready. But Manfredonia broke in while the man was sleeping and grabbed the gun, according to the warrant.
Why wasn’t the community notified?
In the days after the crime and in response to town residents’ complaints about the lack of information from state police, Willington selectmen had a meeting with Lt. Robert Palmer, the commander of Troop C in Tolland, the state police barracks that covers Willington. More than 100 town residents joined the meeting via Zoom.