Man arrested in CT town’s first homicide in 10 years

CHAPLIN — The person of interest sought in connection with the death of a local man has been taken into custody in New Hampshire, state police said Tuesday.

Police said Matthew Candler, 46, was apprehended and taken into custody on a felony warrant in Seabrook, N.H.

Candler is expected to be extradited to Connecticut. State police did not elaborate on the specific charge.

The homicide is the first in a decade in the small eastern Connecticut town.

The victim, Jeffrey C. Rawson, 51, who lived in a ranch on Miller Road, is believed to have known Candler, officials said.

The two men apparently were living together, said Juan Roman III, the town’s first selectman.

Before Candler’s capture, Roman said the state police assured him there was no threat to other residents of his woodsy town of less than 2,200. Police suspected Candler was no longer in the area and said his distinctive, oldermodel pickup was found Monday in Salisbury, Mass.

“The community itself is safe,” Roman, a retired Hartford police officer, said before Candler’s arrest. “They’ve basically established it to be an isolated incident.”

State police said they received a call about 6:10 a.m. Sunday that someone was suffering lifethreatening injuries during an assault at a home on the 200block of Miller Road. State police said troopers discovered Rawson, who had died.

State police Eastern District Major Crime detectives were called to investigate. Roman said they were at the scene all day and most of the night.

Troopers did not release information about how Rawson is believed to have died. An employee in the state medical examiner’s office said Tuesday the circumstances of Rawson’s death are “pending further investigation.”

According to state police, the last homicide in Chaplin was Feb. 22, 2012. In that case, a Willimantic man was found fatally stabbed in a driveway on Mountain Laurel Lane, The Norwich Bulletin reported. A wounded woman who survived the attack was found on nearby Miller Road — the same street where Sunday’s homicide occurred.

The 2012 deadly stabbing, which remains unsolved, was only about a half-mile from Sunday’s homicide, Roman said.

The previous homicide in Chaplin is more widely known: The 1998 bludgeoning of pregnant Heather Messenger by her husband, David Messenger, in front of their 5-year-old child. Messenger, who told police he killed his wife with a fireplace poker, was acquitted by reason of insanity and committed to the state mental health facility. He has since been granted permission to move into his own apartment in Hartford, according to The Hartford Courant.