True Crime Stories: The Wood Chipper Murder || Helle Crafts скачать в хорошем качестве

True Crime Stories: The Wood Chipper Murder || Helle Crafts

True Crime Stories: The Wood Chipper Murder || Helle Crafts On November 18, 1986, Pan Am flight attendant Helle Crafts, 39, who lived at 5 Newfield Lane, was last seen alive. She wasn't reported missing until December 1. More than a month later, State Police arrested Eastern Airlines pilot Richard Crafts, 49, at his home, charging him with the murder of his wife. He was held on $750,000 bond. His children, ages 8, 10 and 12 at the time, were removed from the home and put in the custody of Mr Crafts' sister, Karen Rogers, in Westport. Major crime investigators literally combed the woods looking for evidence near the river about one mile north of the Silver Bridge on River Road in Southbury. There, amid a pile of wood chips, they found a 1-inch piece of a finger, several hundred strands of hair, a finger nail, a tooth, a toenail, bone fragments, flesh, and letters addressed to Mrs Crafts. Divers were also in on the investigation, actually locating a chain that was said to belong to the chainsaw Mr Crafts used in the crime. That was found in the water below the Silver Bridge. The horrifying accounts of the murder stunned and shocked the community, known more for its quality of life than for gruesome deaths. Newtown suddenly became the focus of widespread media coverage. Many curiosity seekers drove by the crime scene to see the large tent set up next to the Major Crime Squad van along the edge of River Road in Southbury, where police were sifting for evidence. Mrs Crafts was trying to serve her husband with divorce papers before she disappeared. Suspecting he was having an affair, she apparently told her attorney that if she disappeared not to assume it was an accident. Her car was later found parked at Kennedy International Airport. Mr Crafts worked as an auxiliary police officer for the Newtown police and had been employed as a part-time cop in Southbury at the time of his arrest. Assisting in the state police investigation was renowned forensics expert Dr Henry Lee, who later went on to testify for the defense in the trial of OJ Simpson. It took two trials to convict Mr Crafts. The first, held at Danbury Superior Court, ended in a mistrial in 1987. The second trial was moved to New London where a guilty verdict was rendered in November 1989. Mr Crafts was sentenced to 50 years in prison. He was the first man ever convicted of murder in Connecticut without the discovery of the victim's body. Mr Crafts, who in 1984 was diagnosed with colon cancer and given a two percent chance of survival. Today, Richard Crafts, now 59, remains in prison at the MacDougall Correctional Institution, a newly constructed high security prison in Suffield. His release eligibility date is listed as 2022.