New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
Questions persist in Manfredonia investigation
NEWTOWN — Before his name made national headlines as the prime suspect in a string of savage crimes, Peter Manfredonia’s regular appearances in the hometown newspaper were for the right reasons.
He was always on the honor roll or the high honor roll. His name could often be found in the sports pages as a captain on the Newtown High School track and field team, or as an offensive lineman for the 2013 conference champion football team. The fact that Manfredonia grew up in Sandy Hook six houses down the block from mass murderer Adam Lanza was never mentioned in newspapers, except when adults worried in the press about the negative effects the 2012 slayings of 20 first-graders and six educators could have on his generation.
And before Manfredonia was arrested Wednesday in connection with two Memorial Day weekend homicides, the social media posts associated with the 23-year-old University of
Connecticut senior were recently about his support of the gun violence prevention work by homegrown nonprofits in Newtown.
The only posts that seem telling now are the social media images of red-flag handwriting allegedly on Manfredonia’s bedroom walls, purporting to depict the troubled inner dialogue of a young man at the breaking point.
While the messages were allegedly seen in Manfredonia’s former bedroom in an off-campus apartment, it has not been confirmed that he wrote them.
If those were his writings, “things were really building up,” observed Monsignor Robert Weiss, the pastor of St. Rose of Lima Church in Newtown, who remembers Manfredonia coming through the parish’s religious education program.
“The extent of these crimes and the absolute evil of them is unbelievable to me,” Weiss said.
Manfredonia’s attorney concedes as much. “He’s been battling anxiety and depression for a couple of years,” said Michael Dolan, a Hamden attorney who has also been speaking to the media on behalf of Manfredonia’s parents. “This is completely out of character for him — he’s had no earlier involvement with police.”
Dolan is referring to a six-day manhunt through four states that ended with Manfredonia’s peaceful surrender to police in Maryland. Police said the victims include a 62-year-old Willington man who was hacked to death, and 23-year-old Derby resident Nicholas Eisele — a fellow 2015 Newtown High School graduate with Manfredonia — who was shot in the head.
The degree to which Manfredonia’s mental illness is a factor in his defense and the extent to which the trauma of the Sandy Hook massacre is part of the college student’s story remains to be seen, his attorney said.
Manfredonia is yet to be extradited to Connecticut or to be
charged, other than being a fugitive from justice.
“Until you spend time in Sandy Hook, you don’t understand how it affects people — because there is not a single person who doesn’t know somebody who lost a loved one,” Dolan said. “Yes, this happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School, but the entire district was locked down as rumors were swirling, and these kids were terrorized.” Weiss agrees. “There are all these connections with him living on the same street as Adam Lanza, and Sandy Hook happening when he was at a very impressionable age,” Weiss said. “We’re still seeing the effects of Sandy Hook in young people’s lives.”
Weiss is scheduled to preside Sunday at a memorial service for Eisele, who received his sacraments in the St. Rose religious education program in the same class as Manfredonia. Eisele’s supporters said it was easy to remember the good life he lived, calling him committed to the things he loved, including his girlfriend.
His girlfriend, who also grew up in Newtown and attended the St. Rose religious education program, was kidnapped by Manfredonia after Eisele was killed, Connecticut state police said. She escaped uninjured a few hours later as the manhunt continued for Manfredonia.
“We have three Newtown families that are affected by this and they are all dealing with it in different ways,” Weiss said.
Yogananda Street
Manfredonia’s parents’ divorce was finalized in the early fall of 2012 as he was beginning his sophomore year in high school.
Already a model student, sports had been his world — whether it was soccer, lacrosse or basketball. A big kid who would grow to 6-foot-3 and 240 pounds, he focused on football and track and field in high school.
In a short Q&A interview published on Jan. 13, 2012, in his hometown Newtown Bee newspaper, Manfredonia appears in a photograph without his trademark smile, answering a few standard questions about being a defensive lineman on the high school football team.
His favorite team? “The Bears.”
His favorite food? “Macaroni
and cheese.”
His favorite subject? “Science.”
His favorite part about playing? “Probably getting to hit other kids,” Manfredonia says.
Then his world changed. His 20-year-old Yogananda Street neighbor woke up on Dec. 14, 2012, and shot and killed his mother, Nancy Lanza. Adam Lanza then drove to Sandy Hook Elementary School, shot his way into a locked building, and massacred 26 souls inside before shooting himself in the head.
As Manfredonia’s world was hurled into the national news cycle, his family was coming apart. In 2013, his mother took sole possession of their four-bedroom Colonial where he lived with his two sisters, down the road from the taped-off Lanza home.
Three months before his high school graduation, the town razed the Lanza home and removed it from Yogananda Street, leaving a vacant 2-acre lawn.
At graduation, Manfredonia’s smile was back, winning the Outstanding Male Athlete award in 2015 and getting accepted to UConn, where he would enroll in the honors program, studying management and engineering.
The anxiety and depression that worsened enough in Storrs for Manfredonia to seek out a therapist was not apparent to people such as his landlord, who called him “a normal, young guy.”
Even less was Manfredonia’s mental health crisis visible to former classmates in Sandy Hook, perhaps because he was often smiling and posting affirming messages.
“I had an opportunity to meet and talk to Avielle’s mother, Jennifer, who taught me about the crucible moments of our lives,” Manfredonia wrote in a 2019 social media post about Jennifer Hensel, the mother of a first-grader slain in the Sandy Hook massacre and the co-founder of the Avielle Foundation for research about violence and the brain. “These crucible moments are the transformative experiences throughout life that test our character and alter our very own sense of identity.”
Manfredonia’s affirming words did not tell the whole story, Weiss said. “The one thing you hear is that he was bright — and an incredible athlete — and it’s just a shock to think about what must have been going on in his mind with so much going for him,”
Weiss said. “That has been the hardest thing for people to understand.”
At the same time, Manfredonia’s father, Robert, is in trouble with police. The 54-year-old Newtown man is charged in the April 10 sexual assault of a teenage girl he knew.
Robert Manfredonia, who is charged with second-degree sexual assault and two counts each of risk of injury to a minor and providing alcohol to a minor, is free on $50,000 bail. Neither he nor his attorney, William Pelletreau, would comment.
Manfredonia’s mother, Jeanette, has moved out of town but remains a teacher in Newtown. She could not be reached for comment.
Weiss said if the Lanza example is any guide, the Manfredonia family will come under scrutiny as details of Peter Manfredonia’s case are spelled out in police and court documents.
“His mother is a wellrespected and outstanding teacher, so I feel sorry for the family,” Weiss said. “I feel sorry for all three families that are dealing with this very difficult situation.”