Attorney: Witness gave cops key leads on Manfredonia

A lawyer representing a witness in the Peter Manfredonia case says his client shared key information with investigators during the six-day manhunt, including where the University of Connecticut student “was planning on going and who he was going to see.”

Alan Barry, a Danbury attorney, described his client as a “cooperating witness” and an acquaintance of Manfredonia, 23, who was apprehended Wednesday night in Maryland and is awaiting extradition to Connecticut where he is accused of two homicides and other crimes that occurred over a three-day span last weekend.

“My client had what turned out to be, according to law enforcement, actionable information regarding Peter Manfredonia, his background, his thought processes, his plans of where he was planning on going and who he was going to see,” Barry said in an interview with Hearst Connecticut Media.

“There was no list,” he said.

“What my client shared in the most general terms was general plans and people that were acquaintances in one form or another. In no way should it be interpreted that my client came into information with respect to ‘I’m

driving to this place, I’m going to see this person.’”

Barry said his client was “never a suspect,” but he declined to say how the man knew this information or how and when Manfredonia communicated it to him.

“He wanted to do something to help, but he was afraid, basically, of how to go forward anonymously

and protect himself,” Barry said.

Barry said he approached law enforcement on behalf of his client, who came to him after seeing news reports about police looking for Manfredonia last weekend.

The information “played a role” in Manfredonia’s apprehension, but didn’t make the case, Barry said.

“I believe without going into any specifics, that it allowed them to shortcut part of the investigative process,” he said. “I can’t say anything more than that.”

Barry said he also turned over images to law enforcement that his client showed him, allegedly depicting Manfredonia’s former bedroom. A man who identified himself on Twitter as the twin brother of Nicholas Eisele, who police say was killed by Manfredonia on Sunday, shared similar images of walls covered with handwritten messages like “I’m not angry…I’m upset” and “Is this bad? Will I get in trouble? Will they look at me strange?”

The photos and others have been widely shared on social media this week. One photo shows a message referencing Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter who killed 20 students and six educators in 2012 and lived down the street from Manfredonia’s childhood home.

“We saw what happened when Adam snapped,” one message reads. “Now they see what happens when I snap,” another message reads.

Barry would not say whether the images on social media were the same as the ones his client shared, but said they were similar. Barry also would not say if the photos he saw were taken by his client.

What was clear, the lawyer said — the images are “frightening to look at it.”

“This is somebody who is functioning at an incredibly horrible level who was probably beyond angry and beyond disturbed,” Barry said. “If I knew this person, I would have been really afraid.”

He said neither he nor his client have any specific knowledge about how Manfredonia felt about Lanza. Manfredonia grew up on the same street as Lanza and raised money for Sandy Hook Promise, a charitable organization formed after the mass shooting whose mission is to protect children from gun violence.

In one of the photos, the words “Sandy Hook Promise” are written

above a door, but other words nearby are illegible.

While the messages were allegedly seen in Manfredonia’s former bedroom, it has not been confirmed that he wrote them.

“Whatever he wrote there about Sandy Hook, it’s hard to understand,” said Barry, assuming Manfredonia wrote the messages. “Was he at one time championing the cause of Sandy Hook Promise as opposed to another time, saying ‘That was nothing, wait until you see what I do?’”

Sources with knowledge of the wall messages said they were written in an off-campus apartment where Manfredonia lived during the 2018-19 school year. A UConn spokeswoman confirmed the images shared on social media were not taken inside an official school living facility.

State police declined to comment when asked about the wall messages.

Michael Dolan, an attorney for Manfredonia, said he was not aware of the messages.

State police said they do not yet have a motive for the series of events that began last Friday when they say Manfredonia attacked two men with a type of machete in upstate Connecticut.

A source close to the investigation said Manfredonia was heading to see his former girlfriend in Willington when his motorcycle broke down.

Theodore DeMers offered Manfredonia a ride on his four-wheeler when police say the 62-year-old man was fatally attacked with an “edged” weapon. John Franco, 80, was critically injured in the attack when he came to help his neighbor. Alice Franco told Hearst Connecticut Media that her husband, a U.S. Navy vet who grew up in Trumbull, is now in stable condition.

A Willington man was left unharmed Sunday after police say Manfredonia stole his guns, food, supplies and his truck during a home invasion.

A few hours later, police recovered the stolen truck in Derby, setting off an extensive search that led authorities to a Roosevelt Drive home about a mile away. Inside the home, police said they found the body of Eisele, a former Newtown High School classmate of Manfredonia. The state’s medical examiner said Eisele was shot several times in the head and police said Manfredonia kidnapped the man’s girlfriend who was found several hours later unharmed in New Jersey.