Husband of slain mother charged
22-year-old accused of manslaughter in death of Edwards
The husband of Jessica Edwards has been arrested and charged in the death of the missing South Windsor mother, whose remains were discovered Friday morning in East Hartford almost two weeks after she was first reported missing by her family.
Tahj Hutchinson, 22, is being held on a $1 million bond and is expected to be arraigned Monday morning on manslaughter charges.
Hutchinson was among the first to report his wife missing, but investigators now believe his initial story to police was not true and that Edwards, at that point, was already dead, police have said.
Police arrested Hutchinson Friday night, almost 12 hours after they located Edwards’ remains in thick woods near Hockanum River Linear Park, and charged with first-degree manslaughter.
Police believe Edwards was killed shortly after she was last seen by her family on Mother’s Day, but her death has not yet been ruled a homicide pending the final report of a Saturday morning autopsy. Hutchinson may face additional charges, including murder, based on the outcome of that report.
The arrest capped a nearly two-week saga spearheaded by Edwards’ family’s dogged work to organize search parties and help police with their investigation, Sgt. Mark Cleverdon said Saturday morning.
“They were really the
catalyst for this thing going the way it went, because if they didn’t call us when they did and if they didn’t try to find her when they did, that wouldn’t have been able to start us off as soon as it did,” Cleverdon said. “They certainly set the tone for what was happening over the last couple weeks that gave us a lot to go off, and that’s because their family dynamic is so strong. You can sense it from talking to her mother and sister. They immediately sensed something was seriously wrong.
“I credit them for their strength and resiliency. They have not slept over the past two weeks, and they have been there to support us in our investigation, so we’ll continue to be there to support them.”
As the search for Edwards’ remains narrowed to East Hartford on Friday morning, so too had investigators’ case against her husband.
Detectives set out a two-part plan: one team to search the woods near the park off Chipper Drive where phone location data led them to believe they would find Edwards and another would monitor Hutchinson at a relative’s home in Manchester, Cleverdon said.
“We had a lot of moving parts going on behind the scenes,” Cleverdon said. “We were pretty confident we were going to find Jessica yesterday. With that, we knew we wanted to keep an eye on him and we wanted to make sure to maintain a low profile with the media knowing we were in a certain area. We didn’t want to spook him.”
Hutchinson had cooperated with the investigation and agreed to be interviewed again Friday, but investigators instead confronted him with their findings that his initial story to police was wrong and that they had located Edwards’ remains, Cleverdon said.
“Now we had credible information. We had a body,” Cleverdon said. “Up until that point, we didn’t have a crime scene.”
An arrest warrant affidavit was already in the works Friday, and the discovery of Edwards’ remains in East Hartford, along with Hutchinson’s final interview, provided detectives the last details necessary to make an arrest, Cleverdon said. While Cleverdon and top police leaders confirmed at a public news conference Friday evening that Edwards had been found, detectives and prosecutors worked to secure a judge’s approval to charge Hutchinson.
He was formally arrested a few hours later and will be held at the South Windsor Police Department until he is arraigned in court Monday morning.
A copy of the arrest warrant affidavit detailing detectives’ investigation will not be made public until Monday morning, just ahead of the hearing, and additional charges may follow the final autopsy report in the coming weeks, Cleverdon said.
Edwards’ family has asked not to be contacted about the case and declined to speak publicly, but they remain in constant contact with investigators, Cleverdon said.
“I think yesterday for them was as much closure as we can give them at this point,” Cleverdon said. “The hope is there’s also a conviction for Mr. Hutchinson.”