Homicide suspect served with harassment warrant week after alleged murder
MILFORD — The man accused of killing the mother of his 3-year-old son in an ax attack last week has been charged with harassing her weeks before her death.
Ewen Dewitt, 42, was served with an arrest warrant Wednesday accusing him of second-degree harassment and violating a protective order in connection with more than 200 text messages he allegedly sent to Julie Minogue in the weeks leading up to her Dec. 6 homicide inside her Salem Walk condo.
These newest charges are in addition to the pending charges against him for Minogue’s death, which included murder, home invasion, risk of injury to a minor, criminal violation of a protective order and criminal violation of a restraining order. He was also charged with risk of injury to a child and reckless endangerment.
The arrest warrant affidavit for the latest charges, written by Detective Master Sergeant Douglass S. Youd, reveals additional details about the investigation into the text messages which prompted Minogue to seek a civil restraining order barring Dewitt from contacting her — in addition to the partial protective order already in place connected to a 2019 domestic incident.
But it’s still unclear exactly why Dewitt wasn’t arrested again prior to Minogue’s death.
The affidavit states Dewitt admitted to calling Minogue “foul names” during a phone call with police last month but declined to show up for an interview in the case.
In a prepared statement, Milford police said last week they had submitted an arrest warrant application Nov. 19 — five days after Minogue complained
about the text messages— but that “To date, the warrant is unsigned.”
State’s Attorney Margaret E. Kelley subsequently released a statement that said prosecutors had “immediately” reviewed the warrant Nov. 21 and sent it back to the police seeking more information, but that the warrant had not been
submitted again.
According to Youd’s affidavit, the officer who had investigated Minogue’s complaint, Scott Knablin, compiled an arrest warrant application Nov. 18, seeking to charge him with violating a protective order and “submitted (it) for judicial review.”
“After review, the arrest warrant application submitted by Officer Knablin was not issued and was returned for additional information,” Youd’s affidavit reads.
The document does not go into further detail about what information was sought from police, but states Youd was assigned to the case Dec. 9, three days after Minogue’s killing.
The affidavit states that on Nov. 14, Knablin left a voicemail for Dewitt, who returned his call and told him “I know what this is about” and admitted calling Minogue “foul names.”
Dewitt allegedly told Knablin he was allowed to text Minogue, but Knablin said he had texted over 200 times, Minogue wanted to be left alone, and “that this rose to the level of harassment,” according to the affidavit.
Youd reviewed Knablin’s arrest warrant application, body cam footage of the officer’s Nov. 14 interview with Minogue, and the text messages allegedly sent by Dewitt, which showed “a troubled relationship,” the affidavit says — and included messages from Minogue to Dewitt telling him to leave her alone.
The affidavit also noted Dewitt’s 2019 arrest and the protective order in place already, which, as of January 2021, barred him from
harassing Minogue and ordered him to stay away from her home.
Dewitt violated the order “by repeatedly text messaging the victim with more than two hundred messages,” the affidavit states. “When the victim asked Officer Knablin how she could get the protective order changed to include a no contact order, he advised her that she would need to go back to court.”
Dewitt appeared briefly in Milford Superior Court Wednesday before Judge Peter Brown, who continued the murder case to Feb. 3. Dewitt stood next to his lawyer, Public Defender John Walkley, with his head bowed throughout the proceeding.
Walkley declined to comment outside the courtroom, as did several of Dewitt’s family members.
Two hours later, Dewitt appeared via videoconference from the courthouse lockup to be arraigned on the new charges before Judge Auden Grogins, who set bond at $1.5 million in the case and continued it to the same Feb. 3 date.
Hundreds of people gathered at a vigil in Minogue’s memory Dec. 11, where co-workers from Connecticut Coastal OB/GYN said that she quickly made friends during her four years as a medical assistant. A Gofundme page for her children has raised more than $130,000.