Gervais guilty of manslaughter

Plea comes nearly 2 years after his wife was bludgeoned

TORRINGTON — Daniel Gervais, accused of killing his wife in April 2017, pleaded guilty to charges of first-degree manslaughter and tampering with evidence Friday.

Gervais was arrested and charged with murder and tampering with physical evidence in May 2017. Gervais is scheduled to be sentenced April 26, according to a court clerk.

Gervais called Litchfield County Dispatch at 4:05 a.m. on April 22, 2017, reporting that he believed his wife, Phyllis, had fallen during the night and died, according to the arrest warrant affidavit.

“She’s not moving,” he said. “She’s on the floor.”

Torrington firefighters arrived on scene first at Cider Mill Crossing. No lights were on when Lt. Walter Dixon of the Torrington Fire Department walked inside and found Daniel Gervais sitting in a bedroom, according to the affidavit.

Gervais calmly told Dixon that his wife was in the kitchen, and the two proceeded into that room, which is connected to the home’s living room.

Dixon saw blood on the ceiling, on the rear wall and on the blinds adjacent to the table in the room where the body was found, the affidavit says.

Firefighters did not find a pulse when they checked the body — she was cold to the touch and rigor mortis had set in, according to the affidavit. A doctor from Charlotte Hungerford Hospital pronounced Phillys Gervais dead at approximately 4:31 a.m.

A Torrington Police Department officer arrived on scene and determined there were no “obstructions or items on the floor” and “nothing in the immediate area of Phyllis to suggest a cause for her to fall,” the affidavit says.

A broken glass coffee table with blood on it and a bloody towel on the floor were documented. In all, police collected 57 separate pieces of evidence at the scene, including bloody clothing from a basket, sponges, washcloths and a 24-inch steel rod with blood on it found on a shelf in the garage.

Torrington police detectives arrived on scene at about 6 a.m., the affidavit says. Detectives determined “someone attempted to clean up the blood that was on the floor around Phyllis’ body,” and someone had also left traces of blood in a nearby bathroom, the affidavit says.

Daniel Gervais was unable to tell the detectives whether his wife was taking any medication that could have caused her to fall but that she was “prone to tripping,” the affidavit says. He also told them they never had an argument, but that he slept in a separate room because she was a “busy body” who liked to do things late at night when he wanted to sleep. He sleeps with headphones on, he told police.

Police said he gave conflicting information about

how soon he had called 911 after finding his wife, what they had done the night before, how his right arm got injured and why he had blood on his shoes, according to the affidavit. Gervais told police had was suffering from short-term memory loss after suffering two strokes.

Gervais first told police he had not gone within 10-15 feet of his wife, but later said he “could have” gone up to the body, according to the affidavit. He gave alternate descriptions of the route he took, after waking up in the early morning hours to find her on the floor.

Deputy Medical Examiner Maura DeJoseph determined the injuries Phyllis sustained were from blunt impact from at least three strikes of a weapon and ruled her death a homicide, the affidavit says.

During court proceedings, Gervais’ competence to stand trial was called

into question. He was found incompetent to participate in his own defense on Sept. 12, 2017, then sent to the Whiting Forensic Division of the Connecticut Valley Hospital.

At the time, a clinical team with the Office of Forensic Evaluations, a subgroup of the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, concluded he “displayed significant deficits that interfered with his ability to learn, retain, or apply information that was presented to him” during an evaluation.

He was then deemed competent to participate in his own defense in November, according to a report entered as an exhibit in the case.

According to the report, Gervais complained of short-and-long-term memory loss while being evaluated at the facility, but demonstrated an ability to recall information from both the relatively distant past and the near-term, including “details regarding his children, businesses, property, and family life,” and learned the regulations of life in the unit. He also demonstrated an understanding of court proceedings and roles, the report said.

“(I)t is the unanimous opinion of the treatment team and this writer that Mr. Gervais now demonstrates a sufficient understanding of the proceedings and has the ability to assist in his defense,” said Julie Pratt, competency monitor, in the report. “Throughout his WFD admission, Mr. Gervais has asserted that he has significant memory deficits stemming from the stroke he suffered in January 2017, but his self-report is not consistent with his demonstrated capacities over the past two months.”

Gervais