The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Warrant: Surrendering ‘wasn’t an option,’ Manfredonia told hostage
Peter Manfredonia said he hadn’t slept for five days and “just flipped” before slashing a 62-year-old man to death with a Samurai sword and seriously injuring another in the culde-sac of a Willington dirt road last month, according to court documents unsealed
Monday.
The details come from a statement by a 73-year-old Willington man who police say was held hostage at gunpoint in his home by Manfredonia hours after
the killing.
The man told police Manfredonia held him captive for more than 24 hours before stealing guns, money and a pickup truck, which the University of
Connecticut student allegedly crashed in Derby. Police said Manfredonia then killed an acquaintance there and kidnapped the victim’s girlfriend before his May 27 capture in Maryland.
The home invasion victim described a harrowing ordeal during which Man
fredonia’s personality changed repeatedly, from friendly while talking fondly of motorcycles and his family to irritated and “stern and forceful” the morning of his departure, according to the arrest warrant.
Manfredonia didn’t offer any motive for the May 22 killing of 62-year-old Theodore DeMers and assault of 80-year-old John Franco on Mirtl Road in Willington beyond not having slept for days, the home invasion victim said, according to the arrest warrant.
“He said he didn’t know why he did it and that he was remorseful for it,” the man is quoted as telling police in an 11-page arrest warrant that was unsealed Monday.
“He was calm and apologetic, but couldn’t explain why he did that,” the man told police, the warrant stated.
Manfredonia, a 2015 Newtown High School graduate, has been charged with murder, criminal attempt to commit murder, first-degree assault, home invasion, first-degree kidnapping with a firearm, first-degree robbery, first-degree larceny, two counts of first-degree stealing a firearm and thirddegree assault of an elderly person.
He is being held on $7 million bond and is on suicide watch at Garner Correctional Institution in Newtown.
Manfredonia, 23, has not yet been charged in the homicide of his former Newtown High classmate, Nicholas Eisele, and the kidnapping of the man’s girlfriend.
‘He would blow my ... brains out’
According to the warrant, the home invasion victim told police he fell asleep on a recliner inside his house the night of the first homicide on May 22 with a rifle — one of six guns he owns — next to him on a bed because the killing on Mirtl Road happened close to his house and the suspect was still at large.
The man’s home is just over a mile from a wooded area Manfredonia allegedly ditched a motorcycle he rode to and from the Mirtl Road killing.
The home invasion victim told police he woke up abruptly about 5:15 a.m. May 23 “to a male holding a gun to the back of my head and shouting at me not to turn around or he would blow my (expletive) brains out,” according to the warrant.
Manfredonia later told the man he had gotten into the home by using a ladder to climb into an air vent into the garage, then shimmied down a beam onto a generator before using a saw to cut a hole in a door to reach in and unlock a deadbolt, the warrant stated.
The victim told police Manfredonia had a blank look on his face and bound him using zip ties and duct tape.
Manfredonia then helped the man use the bathroom, guided him downstairs to the home’s basement, taped him to a chair and put a movie on TV, the warrant stated.
The man told police he established a sort of a rapport with Manfredonia, who initially said his name was “Rick” while the two were making small talk.
“While we were talking, the news came on and it showed a picture of the murder suspect from Willington and his name,” the man told police, according to the warrant. “When I saw the picture on the news, it looked like the young man who was with me but a younger picture of him. I asked him if his name was really Peter. He said ‘yes’ and I asked why he wanted me to call him Rick and he said, ‘just for the hell of it.’” ‘He didn’t want to face reality’
Conversation then turned to the Willington killing and Manfredonia’s lack of an apparent motive.
“He said that he couldn’t believe that he could do that but then his demeanor switched immediately,” the home invasion victim said, according to the warrant. “I was trying to be very careful in what I asked because there were things that he wouldn’t talk about. While we were talking, he was very careful about what he would say and it seemed like he didn’t want to face the reality of what happened.”
“I had suggested he turn himself in ... and he made it clear that wasn’t an option,” the man said. “He told me he was going to have two good weeks and then he figured it would end in either a shootout, the death penalty, or life in prison.”
The man told police the tone of the conversation changed and Manfredonia seemed irritated, so he decided not to push things and the pair returned to watching movies.
But later, a family member called the man and left a message, so Manfredonia called her back and coached his hostage victim into telling her everything was OK, the warrant stated. The pair repeated the routine when the woman’s husband called after knocking on the door of the home without getting an answer.
“Peter was whispering, telling me what to say, and my male family member wanted to know if we could get together in the morning,” the man said. “Peter was holding up two fingers telling me two days, but I told him tomorrow morning. We ended the phone call and Peter told me my buddy screwed up the next morning for him.”
‘His whole demeanor was different’
Manfredonia offered to make the man food before preparing some for himself and giving the man his medications and a drink. He told the victim he would be taking a vehicle, and the man said he asked Manfredonia to take a pickup truck because a Jeep at the property had belonged to his late wife, according to the warrant.
Manfredonia then gathered supplies — two guns, cash, a grill lighter, alcohol bottles, canned food — and told the man he would leave the next morning, according to the warrant.
The man told police he slept for about three hours before waking up early the next morning — and noticed a change in Manfredonia.
“I could tell his whole demeanor was different and it was all business with him,” the man told police, according to the warrant. “We had a good rapport the previous day and he was binding me so tight that I thought I wouldn’t ever get out if I made a comment that maybe he should just shoot me and he said back, ‘You want me to shoot you?’ so I knew I couldn’t joke with him anymore.”
A blank stare on his face, Manfredonia told the man he would be watching him and not to make any movements, but that if no one found him by 10 a.m., he would call police at noon and tell them where to find the man, according to the warrant.
Manfredonia left about 5:15 a.m. — but didn’t call police. Instead, he allegedly crashed the pickup truck in Derby, where cops found the home invasion victim’s rifle inside the vehicle.
After trying to reach the man by phone and knocking on his door, state troopers forced their way into the 73-year-old’s Willington home where they found him bound to a chair in the basement.
A search of the area near where the truck was found led police to a nearby home, where Eisele was found dead from gunshot wounds to the head. Police said Manfredonia kidnapped Eisele’s girlfriend, who was found a few hours later unharmed at a New Jersey rest stop.
Manfredonia was eventually captured in Maryland after a six-day, four-state manhunt. Among his belongings was a 9-mm pistol he had stolen from the home invasion victim, the warrant stated.