Hostage/Arson Situation & Bodysnatching Make CT Headlines

[PunkyP0WER]

http://www.courant.com/community/hc-...,5243063.story


POLICE BRIEFS

Stamford Police: Toddler's Body Found In N.J.


STAMFORD - The body of a 2-year-old who died in 2007 and was buried in Stamford was found Sunday in a plastic bag on the banks of the Passaic River in Clifton, N.J.

Police believe the body had been stolen from its grave.

Stamford police and investigators from New Jersey exhumed the coffin Monday and it was empty, police said. The coffin was damaged, police said.

The body, discovered about 1:15 p.m. Sunday, was taken to the New Jersey state medical examiner's office, where it is currently being held. An investigation led Clifton police to Stamford, where the child's family resided at the time of the death.

Police interviewed the family and learned that the child had died of a pre-existing medical condition.

Police would not release additional information "due to the sensitivity" of the investigation, according to a statement by Stamford police. The family has requested that the child's name not be released, the statement said.

Stamford, Clifton and Passaic County authorities are cooperating in the investigation.

Anyone with information on the case may contact Clifton police Lt. Richard Berdnik, 973-470-5882.



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http://www.courant.com/community/sou...,5969755.story

SOUTH WINDSOR - Richard Shenkman, who police said kidnapped his ex-wife and held her hostage at his house during a 13-hour standoff, was arraigned at Hartford Hospital today on charges including arson.

Judge Bradford Ward of Superior Court in Manchester set his bail at $2.5 million. He is also being held on $10 million bail on charges brought by Hartford police. Shenkman was placed on suicide and mental health watches and is scheduled to appear in Superior Court in Hartford on July 14.

His ex-wife, Nancy Tyler, managed to escape — even though she had been handcuffed to a wall.

He was arraigned about 3:50 p.m. in the emergency room at Hartford Hospital, surrounded by Hartford police, officers from the state Department of Correction, and court, medical and psychiatric personnel.

Shenkman's attorney, Hugh Keefe, said his client was suffering from internal injuries and was in pain. The arraignment was delayed while medical personnel determined whether Shenkman, 60, was able to continue. Keefe said medical personnel administered drugs twice, until Shenkman was alert enough to continue.

"He's in and out of consciousness," Keefe said. "He's asleep one minute, he's awake the next."

But Keefe said he felt his client was ready for the arraignment. Keefe said he discussed Tuesday's standoff with Shenkman, but declined to provide details. No plea was entered, but Keefe said he would seek a bail reduction in the future.

There were more charges expected to be filed by Hartford police; today's charges stemmed from events in South Windsor.

While Shenkman was being arraigned, fire investigators began their probe of the inferno that reduced his house at 96 Tumblebrook Drive to rubble, ending the 15-hour ordeal that police say started with Shenkman grabbing Tyler from a Hartford parking garage. Police suspect Shenkman set the fire that apparently prompted him to leave the burning house 2½ hours after it started.

Shenkman had told hostage negotiators that he had rigged the house with explosives. The house was about to transferred to Tyler as a part of a divorce settlement.

Bomb technicians clad in thick helmets and protective gear swept through the foundation of the house. No explosives were found around the foundation or exterior of the home, said South Windsor Police Commander Matthew Reed.

The bomb technicians will continue searching for explosives in the interior of the home, he said.

Firefighters were on the scene until nearly 3 a.m. Tuesday, soaking the remains of the house. They returned a few times to douse the flames that continued to pop up during the day. The rubble was still smoking into the afternoon.

They did not initially attack the fire because Shenkman was still in the house and was indiscriminately firing some type of gun, police said. They also were concerned about the possibility that there were explosives inside.

More than three dozen gunshots were heard Monday evening. South Windsor Police Commander Matthew Reed said all those shots came from Shenkman. Police, who had surrounded the house, did not fire back.

The gunfire and flames erupted about 9:30 Tuesday night, about an hour after Tyler got out of the house.

At 9:40 p.m., a fire was reported inside the house, and at 9:44 p.m., police were calling on Shenkman to get out of the house. By 9:55 p.m., the house was engulfed in flames, and police continued to order Shenkman out using a bullhorn. Reed said the tear gas police fired into the house does not produce heat and did not cause the fire. Police did see Shenkman running through the house and setting fires.

Shenkman refused to leave the house even as flames consumed it. He may have taken refuge in some sort of safe room in the basement, police said. As police and firefighters watched the home burn, firefighters told police it was likely Shenkman had died. Firefighters sprayed water to protect neighboring homes from burning embers, then eventually turned their hoses what was left of the Shenkman house.

But 30 to 40 minutes into the fire, officers spotted Shenkman by the back door. They again urged him to leave the house, promising he would not be hurt.

Shenkman refused, however, and begged police to kill him. About midnight he had enough and left the house. Police immediately took him into custody. Despite being inside a burning home more than two hours, Shenkman appeared to be in good condition, Reed said.

Police said Shenkman took Tyler hostage around 9 a.m. Tuesday in the parking lot of her workplace at CityPlace in downtown Hartford. He allegedly brought her to the house on Tumblebrook Drive, and by 11 a.m., police had cordoned off the house and evacuated the neighborhood as Shenkman threatened to harm his hostage and blow up the house.

Tyler made it out of the home safely around 8:27 p.m., into the arms of police officers who whisked her out of harm's way. She managed to escape even though she had been handcuffed to an eye bolt — a bolt with a ring-shaped head — that had been screwed into a wall. She was taken to St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford after police debriefed her and was later discharged.

Shenkman and Tyler were scheduled to be in Superior Court in Hartford Tuesday morning for yet another round in their protracted divorce. He had repeatedly refused a judge's order to vacate 96 Tumblebrook Drive and turn it over to Tyler.

"Today was D-Day," Keefe said Tuesday.

Instead, police said, he kidnapped her from Hartford, where she works as an attorney at the law firm of O'Brien, Tanski and Young, and took her to Tumblebrook Drive to make his stand.

He was armed and warned police the house was wired with explosives.

Up to 50 officers surrounded the house, which police said had six cameras, some of which looked as if they had been hastily mounted on its exterior.

"It looks like it had been fortified, quite frankly, to keep people from seeing in, as if he was preparing for some sort of standoff," said Reed.

Shenkman allegedly set fire to a 115-year-old Victorian beach house in East Lyme in 2007 moments before he was supposed to give it to Tyler. In April, he was charged with forging Tyler's signature on life insurance documents, police said.

"I want Nancy to walk out of here," Shenkman said in a telephone call to a New London Day reporter during the standoff on Tuesday. "I know I'm never leaving this alive. I'm going to leave in a body bag. I've lost everything in my life."

Police said a woman, who sources later identified as Tyler, called a friend about 9 a.m. Tuesday and said she had seen her ex-husband in the CityPlace parking lot and asked her friend to call police. When police responded, Reed said, the woman's car was gone, but a blue van believed to be her ex-husband's was found on Haynes Street, outside CityPlace.

Police tracked the woman's cellphone signal to South Windsor, Reed said, and shortly before 11 a.m. Shenkman called police.

A SWAT team surrounded the home, neighbors were evacuated and streets cordoned off as hostage negotiators began talking with the man. A black armored vehicle and the Hartford bomb squad arrived at the scene shortly afterward.

Early Tuesday afternoon, Hartford police, as a precaution, briefly evacuated CityPlace — where the light blue Chrysler minivan remained — and the nearby Goodwin Square Office Tower. Assistant Police Chief Neil Dryfe said there was no indication that Shenkman had left explosives in the minivan, but the state police bomb squad was called in as a precaution.

"These are not the actions of a rational person. We were not willing to take a chance," Dryfe said. No explosives were found.

Shenkman had run a Bloomfield-based advertising agency with Tyler while they were married, but the business has been inactive for several years, Keefe said.

In addition to speaking with police negotiators, Shenkman telephoned the New London Day four times during the standoff and spoke to reporter Karen Florin.

Although Shenkman said at one point he wanted "Nancy to walk out of here," he also said he was willing to kill her and die himself, particularly if police were aggressive.

"I think they're going to get frustrated soon and they're going to push me," he told Florin, The Day's court reporter. "I believe this is going to end in violence, not that I want it to."

Shenkman allowed Tyler to speak freely with Florin during three of the calls.

"I don't want either of us to be hurt," Tyler said. "I want both of us to come through this and move on. There's nothing here that can't be undone," she said, The Day reported.Day Managing Editor Timothy J. Cotter said Florin had covered Shenkman's previous legal troubles, including the couple's divorce, and had interviewed him on several occasions. South Windsor police were aware Shenkman was calling The Day but offered no objections or direction on how to handle the calls, Cotter said.

Although police reported early in the standoff they had heard shots from within the house, Shenkman told The Day he had not fired any rounds. He said the house was rigged with 30 video cameras, motion detectors and explosives.

Shenkman made numerous demands of police, including one that media organizations, among them The Courant, not cover the standoff as it developed.

News executives at The Courant declined to remove coverage from its website. At a 3 p.m. press conference, Reed said the continued coverage by The Courant was complicating negotiations.

Courant interim Editor Naedine Hazell said police called the paper and said Shenkman was demanding the coverage be stopped or he would blow up the house at 2:30 p.m. She said the paper got the call a few minutes before 2:30 p.m., the story had already been widely reported for more than three hours and it was not technically possible to remove stories from courant.com that quickly.

Editors then discussed the demand and decided complying could set a precedent for future hostage situations.

"It was difficult to assess Shenkman's demand given his history. Also, there was no context to the demand, including when it had been made, whether it was part of a lengthy list of demands — which turned out to be the case — and whether it was considered credible," Hazell said in a statement. "Within 90 minutes of the threat, we learned from sources that removing the reports from websites had ceased to be a critical concern."

Tuesday evening Reed said of Shenkman, "He's not happy to see the media coverage. He wants to have control over that. "News organizations around the state had different responses to Shenkman's demand.

In his first phone call to The Day shortly before 1 p.m., Shenkman said he would kill Tyler if the paper posted a story on its website. The paper initially held the story but told Shenkman in a conversation at about 2:45 p.m. it was reconsidering.

The paper posted a story a short time later, Cotter said, because it was being widely covered.

According to The Day, Shenkman also wanted a priest to give Tyler her last rites, a copy of their wedding certificate, a judge to remarry them and a copy of the SWAT team procedure manual. The most recent development in Shenkman and Tyler's acrimonious relationship came in April, he was charged with forging Tyler's signature on life insurance documents, police said. Shenkman took out a $9,000 loan against his wife's policy, police said. He turned himself in on an arrest warrant charging him with a single count of second-degree forgery.

Tyler told police in November she had received a letter from Nationwide Insurance claiming that she owed the company $9,000 on a loan against her policy. Tyler brought copies of documents she believed had been forged by her husband."

She had copies of the documents and said it was obvious it was not her signature," police spokesman Sgt. Scott Custer said at the time.

Investigators confirmed through Nationwide Insurance that the documents giving Shenkman control of Tyler's policy had a forged signature, police said. Shenkman told police there was an agreement between the couple's attorneys giving Shenkman control over the policy, but he did not provide proof, Custer said.

[Marvo301]

Wow, what a crazy sick state you live in! Although I'm sure not everyone in the state is like that.

[Nighthawk76]

Wow, that's terrible! I wish I could say that Illinois is better, but some terrible things happen in certain parts of the city.

[Chocoholic]

I feel for the family of that little girl. It's tragic enough to lose a child. Then to hear your daughter's body was desecrated like that? I hope they catch the sicko who did that.

[Lee]

Originally Posted by Chocoholic

I feel for the family of that little girl. It's tragic enough to lose a child. Then to hear your daughter's body was desecrated like that? I hope they catch the sicko who did that.

What do you think of the hostage/arson situation?

And how do you think the guy got the internal injuries?