True Crime and News of the Weird from around the Globe

MIT Researcher Eyed in Fatal Shooting of Yale Grad Student

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Qinxuan Pan (L) is wanted for questioning in the murder of Kevin Jiang (R)

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut — Cops have launched a nationwide manhunt for a MIT researcher eyed in the cold-blooded shooting of a Yale grad student.

Police in New Haven say they wanted to question Qinxuan Pan, a 29-year-old artificial intelligence researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in the weekend shooting of Kevin Jiang outside his house.

Jiang, 26, studied at the Yale School of the Environment and had just gotten engaged to be married to Zion Perry a week before he was shot multiple times. Perry is also a grad student at Yale and had previously studied at MIT.

Police have believed that Jian had been targeted, instead of being a victim of a random act.

Police believe Pan was “in the area” at the time Jiang was killed. The department considers Pan a person of interest and he is not officially suspected of committing the shooting.

“We are not prepared to identify him as the shooter in this investigation. At this point, the only information we can put out is that he is a person of interest,” said New Haven Police Chief Otoniel Reyes.

Asked about the MIT connection to Jiang’s fiancee, Reyes said “we are exploring every angle related to this investigation and every person involved,” but that the department was not ready to discuss any such connections. They were not ruling out a prior relationship between Perry and Pan, he said.

Jiang had gotten engaged to Zion Perry a week before the shooting

Reyes said Pan should be considered armed and dangerous. He is thought to have fled Connecticut and authorities believe he may be in Georgia.

Police say they had contact with Pan shortly after Jiang’s killing, after receiving a call about a man acting suspiciously near some railway tracks. At the time, the officers were unaware at that time that a killing had taken place and Pan was let go.

It was later determined that Pan had been driving in a car that had been stolen in Massachusetts and he is wanted on a warrant for allegedly possessing a stolen car.

The FBI is also investigating the case.

Sax Player Busted Trying to Burn Down Strip Club After Being Thrown Out

By HardBoiledNews Staff

BRIDGEPORT, Connecticut — He must have thought a little T & A stood for torch and arson.

A one-time prominent saxophone player and the son of the former mayor of Bridgeport has been arrested for allegedly trying to burn down a strip club that had refused to let him in.

Stephen Moran, the son of former Mayor Mary Moran, who led Bridgeport from 1989-1991, had been thrown out of Scruples Gentleman’s Club last week for allegedly creating a disturbance, cops said. 

As he was leaving, police said he set fire to a bush outside the club, which was quickly extinguished.

But on Friday night, the 54-year-old Moran returned and after being told he couldn’t come in, police say he came back with a can of gasoline, which he allegedly splashed on the building and then set it on fire.

Club employees were able to put out the fire and held Moran until police arrived. He was charged with second-degree arson, reckless burning and first-degree reckless endangerment.

Stephen Moran

“This is a serious arson case,” prosecutor Nicholas Bove said, according to the Connecticut Post. He said the owners of the strip club worry  Moran might try to strike again.

Moran was once a well-respected saxophone player, performing in the 1990s with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. But his life took a turn, and in 2018 and 2019, he had numerous alcohol-fueled arrests.

Moran’s lawyer asked for leniency for Moran, saying he needs to be home to care for his parents who are both ill with coronavirus.

The judge agreed the incident was serious and noted that Moran is awaiting sentencing in the same court for numerous other charges, so ordered him held on $300,000 bond.

Connecticut Cold Case Slaying Solved After Alleged Killer Confesses in Church

By HardBoiledNews Staff

William Leverett walked into a Connecticut church and told parishioners he killed a jogger 4 years ago

SIMSBURY, Connecticut — He couldn’t live with the guilt any longer.

A registered sex offender turned himself in to cops after walking into a Connecticut church and confessing to the unsolved murder of a jogger four years ago.

The brutal 2014 stabbing of Melissa Millan, a 54-year-old mother of two, had perplexed  investigators who had no suspects and had gone to the FBI and the cold case squad in the Connecticut chief state’s attorney’s office for help last year.

That changed last week when William  Leverett walked into the Open Gate Ministries in Windsor Locks and told them he was responsible for Millan’s death.

“He came to us on Wednesday night and confessed to the homicide,” the church’s co-pastor Michael Trazinski told the Hartford Courant. “We immediately told him, ‘You know what you have to do.’ “He said yes, I have to turn myself in.”

Accompanied by three parishioners, Leverett walked into the Simsbury police headquarters and confessed.

“I’m here to turn myself in for the murder on Iron Horse Boulevard almost four years ago,” he told police, according to the arrest warrant affidavit.

Leverett told cops he went to the running trail the night of Nov. 20, 2014, looking for “human contact” after attending a treatment meeting for sex offenders.

He had landed on the registry in 2009 when he pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a child in Colorado. He told cops he was afraid a woman he’d recently met would find out about his past.

He was “embarrassed and scared and figured that if I just killed somebody, it would make all that go away and I wouldn’t have to explain myself,” he said, according to the report.

That’s when he spotted Millan jogging on the trail. EH told detectives that he became “mentally aroused,” but grew angry when he realized “I can’t have her” because “she was way out of my league.”

“I went into a frenzy,” he allegedly told police.

He then approached her in an unlit area of the trail and stabbed her once in the chest, according to the affidavit. Millan pushed Leverett away, causing the knife to pull out of her chest while he was still holding it. She then toppled backwards over a guardrail and onto a roadway.

“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” he remembered hearing her say as she lay on the ground. Moments later, she fell silent.

Melissa Millan

Leverett told detectives he threw the knife out of his car window into a side street, but went back to retrieve it a few days later. After confessing, he led investigators to a bloody glove hidden in a barn that had Millan’s DNA on it, officials said.

Leverett is being held on $2 million bail.

Following the slaying, Leverett said he wrote several letters to family and friends admitting to the crime, but never sent them.

Colette Trazinski, a co-pastor at the church said Leverett was “very childlike, very trusting of others,” while admitting to the killing.

“He opened up to us about his life, his past, what he’s gone through,” she said. “We never would have expected this.”

Millan’s brother released a statement on behalf of the family saying the arrest: “brings renewed grief, heartache and the knowledge that justice can never be served for the senseless act that robbed us of Melissa’s beautiful presence.”

 

Paranormal Investigator Charged With Shooting at Ghost

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Christian Devaux thought he was shooting at a ghost

TOLLAND, Connecticut — He should have called the Ghostbusters on this one.

A Connecticut man who says he is a paranormal investigator has been charged with lying to  cops when he fired a gun at what he initially reported was a masked intruder but later admitted was a ghost.

Christian Devaux, 25,  called 911 early on the morning of July 26 to report that a man wearing a hooded sweatshirt and a mask and holding a rifle had broken into his home, according to the Manchester Journal Inquirer.

Dispatchers say they heard Devaux screaming “Hey!” on the phone and then firing two shots in an attempt to scare off the intruder, Connecticut state police said.

But crime scene investigators eventually discovered no evidence that Devaux’s house had been broken into. A police dog also failed to pick up a scent in the area, and a canvass of the street turned up nothing suspicious.

Also Devaux’s description of firing shots over the alleged intruder’s head, didn’t match ballistic evidence collected at the scene.

When pressed,  Devaux told troopers that “there are some things he just can’t explain, like seeing ghosts.”

Devaux then told state police that he has been a paranormal investigator for five or six years and that while he did not want to be considered “insane,” he said it was possible the intruder was a ghost.

When asked to clarify that no one had been in his house that morning and that he may have seen a ghost, Devaux replied, “It had to be,” police said.

In 2011, Devaux filed a similar report about a phantom home invader that turned out to be unfounded.

Devaux was released on $5,000 bond.

Man Who Dropped Pants in Court to Prove Innocence in Rape Case Found Not Guilty

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Desmond James had the evidence in his pants all along

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut — Call it a case of junk justice.

A Connecticut rape suspect was acquitted after dropping his pants and exposing himself to the jury to prove that his member didn’t match the description given by the victim.

Desmond James, 26, was cleared of three counts of sexual assault  showing that his equipment didn’t fit the accuser’s description of her attacker being a black man whose penis is lighter than the rest of his skin.

“If it’s not the light one, it’s not the right one,” his lawyer, Todd Bussert, told the New York Post.

James became a suspect after the victim picked him out of a photo lineup in 2012. At the time she said she had been raped by a “dark-skinned black male with big lips and black-people hair,” Bussert said.

“There were a number of troubling aspects in terms of the allegation. It evoked negative racial stereotypes,” he said. “We felt in general that it didn’t describe our client.”

In the end, the only evidence Bussert presented was to have James stand in the middle of the courtroom and drop his pants.

Bussert said the whole thing was very “embarrassing” for James, because court workers had filled the room to watch his testimony.

“If your liberty is at stake, he was willing to do that,” Bussert said.

While he was exonerated in this case, James is already serving a 65 years for breaking into a house and raping a 10-year-old girl.

 

Ex-’Silicon Valley’ Star Busted in Bogus Bomb Threat on Amtrak Train

By HardBoiledNews Staff

T.J. Miller was allegedly dead drunk when he called in the fake bomb threat

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut — T.J. Miller, the former star of the HBO series “Silicon Valley” has been busted for a bizarre episode in which he drunkenly phoned in a fake bomb threat on an Amtrak train, authorities said.

Miller, 36, was picked up late Monday at New York’s La Guardia Airport as he returned from a comedy gig in Canada. He was then taken to New Haven, Connecticut to be arraigned and was released on $100,000 bond.

Miller allegedly called 911 in New Jersey on March 18, claiming to be on Amtrak Train 2256 which was steaming from Washington, DC to New York City, and that there was a woman aboard who had “a bomb in her bag,” federal prosecutors said.

He described her as having brown hair and wearing a scarf.

By the time Amtrak authorities were made aware of the call, the train had entered Connecticut, where it was stopped and searched.  No bomb was found.

Investigators then reached out to Miller again, and this time he told them the woman had red hair and red scarf and had a “black carry-on suitcase with a handle.” He said she kept  checking the bag and asking the first class conductor what the next stop was and that she seemed anxious to get off the train and leave the bag behind.

The investigator noted that Miller was slurring his words and asked if he had been drinking. Miller said he had had a glass of red wine. He also dismissed questions about whether he had ever suffered from mental illness, stating, “This is the first time I’ve ever made a call like this before. I am worried for everyone on that train. Someone has to check that lady out.”

Investigators eventually determined that Miller had actually been aboard Amtrak Train 2258, not 2256, so that train was stopped and searched and nothing was found. The first class attendant on that train told investigators that Miller had appeared drunk when he boarded the train, had several drinks along the way and was then thrown off the train in New York due to being heavily intoxicated.

Turns out, Miller had gotten into an argument with a woman riding in the first class car, and prosecutors allege that Miller had phoned in the threat as an act of revenge against her.

In 2017, Miller acrimoniously left the hit HBO series after its fourth season, later leveling insults against the show’s producers in an interview. The producers later shot back, accusing Miller of being unreliable on set and frequently showing up intoxicated.

 

 

Two Charged With Draining ATMS in High Tech Jackpotting Scheme

By HardBoiledNews Staff

The scam artists were caught attempting to hack Citizens Bank ATMs in Cromwell, Connecticut

HARTFORD, Connecticut — They were aiming for a jackpot but crapped out in the eyes of the law.

Two men have been charged with running a high-tech “jackpotting” scheme in which they allegedly posed as ATM repairmen to install malware on cash machines causing them to suddenly spew out cash.

ATMS can hold up to $50,000 at a time.

Federal prosecutors say they believe that Alex Alberto Fajin-Diaz, 31, of Spain, and Argenys Rodriguez, 21, of Springfield, Massachusetts are behind a string of recent jackpot heists in Connecticut and Rhode Island.

They were finally caught in Jan. 27, when employees of a Citizens Bank in Cromwell, Connecticut called police to report what they believed was an attack on an ATM in progress.

When cops arrived, they found Fajin-Diaz and Rodriguez holding bag in front of an ATM that was spitting out $20 bills.

A search of their car revealed tools and electronic devices that could be used for such a jackpotting scheme as well as $9,000 in $20 bills. The car also bore stolen license plates.

The two men face up to 30 years in prison if convicted.

 

Horrified Officials Find 2 Headless Chickens in Connecticut Courtroom

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Officials believe the headless chickens may have been part of a Santeria ritual to ward off a guilty verdict

BRIDGEPORT, Connecticut — That is just creepy.

Officials in a Connecticut courthouse made a grisly discovery when they found the bodies of two decapitated chickens hidden away inside a courtroom.

The marshals and maintenance staff in the state courthouse in Bridgeport made the horrifying discovery on Wednesday in the public seating area of a courtroom after detecting a putrid smell, the Connecticut Post reported.

Officials say the carcasses were covered in silver, green and gold glitter.

It’s not clear how the chickens got there and an investigation is underway.

State court officials told the paper that headless chickens had been found in the past outside of courtroom buildings but never inside.

Decapitated chickens are sometimes used in Santeria, an Afro-Caribbean religion, to protect a person from being found guilty of a crime, the paper reported.

 

Connecticut Man Pleads Guilty to Having Sex With Dead Woman

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Aaron Graser had an outsized sense of his abilities in bed

WILLIMANTIC, Connecticut — This takes morbid to a new level.

A Connecticut man pleaded guilty to having sex with his girlfriend after she had died of an overdose with the hope that it would help revive her.

Aaron Graser, 39, called cops in January to say his girlfriend was unresponsive. When paramedics arrived, they found needles and heroin near her body and were unable to to resuscitate her.

But officers noticed that woman had ligature marks around her wrists and ankles and began to question Graser. He admitted he found his girlfriend hunched on the bed with drugs paraphernalia on her lap.

“Aaron stated that he laid the victim down the bed and he rubbed her sternum,” according to a warrant for his arrest quoted by the Hartford Courant. “Aaron stated he listened to see if the victim was breathing and he heard gurgling. Aaron stated he knew the victim hated having sex with him so he figured that the victim might wake up if he had sex with her.”

He then admitted  that he tied the woman’s ankles and wrists to bedposts “because it was a fetish of his.” When he was done, he untied her, put her pants on and called a neighbor, who is a former paramedic. The neighbor later told cops she believed the woman had been dead for a couple of hours.

An autopsy later determined she had been dead when Graser had sex with her as the ligature marks were a sign that her blood had already stopped flowing when her hands and feet were tied. The cause of death was an overdose from a mix of fentanyl and heroin.

Graser was initially charged with second-degree sexual assault, but pleaded guilty to the reduced charge of fourth-degree sexual assault of a corpse and sentenced to a year in jail.

 

Man Claims God Told Him to Poop in Church Confessional

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Donald Ray Hurt claims to have had a religious experience while going to the bathroom

STAMFORD, Connecticut — Seems likely this guy misunderstood God’s message.

A man busted for urinating and defecating in the confessional booth of a Connecticut Catholic church says he only did it because “the Holy Spirit told him to,” cops said.

Donald Ray Hurt, 65, of Newark, N.J., was arrested last Wednesday after the custodian of the Basilica of Saint John the Evangelist in Stamford found him wandering around the building naked and called police.

When cops arrived, they discovered Hurt had befouled the confessional booth, the Stamford Daily Voice reported. He told them he was acting on God’s authority.

Hurt was charged with with criminal mischief, burglary and disorderly conduct.

Doctor Whose Family Was Killed in Home Invasion Wins Election

By HardBoiledNews Staff

William Petit's wife and two daughter were killed in a 2007 home invasion

William Petit’s wife and two daughter were killed in a 2007 home invasion

PLAINVILLE, Connecticut — A doctor whose wife and two daughters were murdered in a shocking home invasion nearly a decade ago has been elected to the Connecticut state legislature.

William Petit defeated 11-term Democrat state Rep. Betty Boukus with nearly 60% of the vote in the district that includes Plainville and part of New Britain.

The 60-year-old Petit, who is a Republican, said he ran for office e as a fiscal conservative, not a crime victim.

Petit’s wife and two teen daughters were killed in a 2007 home invasion in Cheshire in which he was beaten and left for dead. Two men were convicted of the killings and were sentenced to death but were later spared and given life in prison when the state of Connecticut repealed the death penalty.

The retired family doctor became increasingly involved in politics when he publicly opposed the effort to overturn the state’s death penalty statute. Petit says he has no plans to try to revive Connecticut’s death penalty a he wants to focus on pushing for needed budget cuts instead.

“There’s many things that we want, but don’t necessarily need, and we’re at a point where we need to make hard choices,” he told The Associated Press.

The race drew wider attention when a month ahead of the election, an online ad from a  labor union’s political action committee tried to link Petit to Donald Trump and “attacks on women and families.”

Boukus, 73, said she found the ad distasteful and a union official resigned in its wake.

 

Veterans Group Treasurer Drains $150K from Accounts, Spends it on Porn

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Frederick Brown admits his porn habit got a bit out of control

Frederick Brown admits his porn habit got a bit out of control

MANSFIELD, Connecticut — The elderly treasurer of  Connecticut VFW post pleaded guilty to stealing over $150,000 from two veterans group and spending it on online porn.

Frederick Brown, 72, admitted he took $143,000 from the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 938 in Willington and $12,300 from the American Legion Post 14 in Vernon.

Prosecutors say members of the VFW post caught wind of the theft in 2014 when a $100 check they had written for a donation bounced. When they checked the post’s bank account they discovered less than $100 was left even though more than $100,000 had been there a year earlier.

As the post’s treasurer, Brown was the only one with access to the cash. Upon further inspection, the post member’s discovered he had opened a debit card on the account and had made $143,000 in purchases, including $32,000 on a site that featured women performing erotic acts via webcam. He also used the cash to buy other items, including groceries, investigators said.

According to the Journal Inquirer, Brown said he “got sucked” into using the site between 2012 and 214 and only stopped when he realized he had drained the post’s account.

After he was arrested in 2015, the members of the American Legion post told cops they thought Brown, who had been their treasurer from 2009 until 2012, had stolen from them as well. They said when he left, they had so little money they almost had to shut the post.

A further investigation found Brown had nabbed over $12,000 from their account.

Brown pleaded guilty in exchange for a 10-year sentence which will be suspended after four years.

 

 

UConn Sophomore Killed in Freak Accident in Front of Fire Station

By HardBoiledNews Staff

UConn sophmore Jaffny Pally, 19, was crushed in a freak accident

UConn sophomore Jaffny Pally, 19, was crushed in a freak accident

STORRS, Connecticut — A 19-year-old student at the University of Connecticut was killed in a freak accident over the weekend in which she was run over by a fire department SUV pulling out of its station.

Connecticut State Police say Jaffny Pally had been seated with her back against the fire department vehicle bay door around 1 a.m. Sunday when a call came in and the SUV pulled out quickly.

When the door lifted, Pally fell backwards and the vehicle, a Chevy Tahoe, rolled over her. It was not clear why she was sitting against the door.

Pally, who hailed from nearby West Hartford, was planning to study nursing, her family told the Hartford Courant.

“Every student is precious to us, and this is a heartbreaking and tragic loss. Our deepest sympathies go out to her family, friends, and all those whose lives she touched. We know that words cannot begin to express their grief,” UConn President Susan Herbst said in a statement.

The driver of the department vehicle was placed on administrative lead while state police continue their investigation.