Warrant: CT man accused of killing his infant daughter heard ‘voices’
WATERBURY — Christopher Francisquini mutilated his 11-month-old daughter, Camilla, leaving her dismembered body in his room in the basement and then left the house to go shopping for Thanksgiving dinner with her mother, according to an arrest warrant charging him with the homicide.
Family members presumed Camilla was sleeping until her mother found her dead in their basement bedroo mm ore than an hour later, the warrant said.
Waterbury State’s Attorney Maureen Platt called Christopher Francisquini an “extreme risk to public safety” after the “horrific mutilation” of his infant daughter, during his arraignment Monday before a packed courtroom in the Superior Court of Waterbury.
Judge Joseph B. Schwartz ordered Francisquini’s bond held at $5 million in his daughter’s homicide. The judge also increased the bond to $1.3 million for several other pending charges from 2021 and more arrests he racked up on the day his daughter was killed and on Friday when he was taken into custody.
Francisquini was remanded to the custody of the state Department of Correction since he allegedly committed the homicide while on special parole.
“I agree you pose a uniquely significant flight risk and that’s compounded by the amount of violence,” Schwartz said before ordering Francisquini held on a total of $6.3 million bond.
Waterbury police served Francisquini with an arrest warrant Monday for a dispute with his daughter’s mother, Kristyl Nieves, in that city sometime after he they said he had killed their daughter. The woman told police during an interview after her daughter had been discovered mutilated that Francisquini was diagnosed as “bipolar” and he “sometimes hears voices in his head,” according to the warrant charging him with breach of peace and criminal mischief.
During the arraignment, Schwartz issued a protective order, prohibiting Francisquini from contact with three individuals, referred to only by their initials in court.
Francisquini, dressed in a white jumpsuit in shackles with a half dozen judicial marshals nearby, did not acknowledge his two public defenders or Schwartz — including when the judge asked if he was aware of who the three protected individuals were by their initials. He also refused to speak with bail officials so they did not make a recommendation on bond.
Platt argued for $7 million bond on the murder case alone, in addition to upping the bonds for each of his other pending cases to $500,000.
“This involves the death and horrific mutilation of a child two weeks before her first birthday,” Platt told the judge. “He poses an extreme risk to public safety.” Platt also pointed out that Francisquini fled and remained on the loose for two weeks. He failed to appear at any of his pending cases, cut off his ankle bracelet and refused to be fingerprinted when he was processed for arrest, she told the court.
“He’s an extreme risk for a flight risk and extreme risk to public safety,” she added.
Camilla’s family was present in the packed courtroom and wore shirts with her image on them. They left after the proceeding without speaking to members of the media who attended the arraignment.
Francisquini is scheduled to appear Tuesday in state Superior Court in Bridgeport on charges of failing to appear in court. He will then appear Wednesday in state Superior Court in Milford for failing to appear on charges
out of that jurisdiction.
Francisquini was on the run for two weeks before Waterbury police apprehended him Friday at a bus stop within yards of the courthouse where he was arraigned Monday.
Naugatuck police allege in the warrant that the 31-year-old strangled and stabbed Camilla, dismembering her body in their Millville Avenue home Nov. 18 before he took Nieves to Waterbury where they wound up in a PetSmart parking lot.