Latest news with #ConnecticutSuperiorCourt
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Yahoo
He Killed a Reggae Star's Daughter Feet Away from Her Child. Then Came the Judge's Haunting Words
Brianna McKoy and Derrick Francis were arguing when he fatally shot her in 2023, authorities said McKoy, 23, was the mother of Francis' son Zander, who was 18 months old when his mother was killed A national manhunt was launched for Francis after he fled the sceneA New York man convicted of killing the mother of his son in front of their child when he was just 18 months old has learned his fate. On Thursday, June 5, Derrick Francis, 43, was sentenced to 55 years in prison for the murder of Brianna McKoy, 23, in Bridgeport, Conn., on April 6, 2023, online court records show. On April 25, a three-judge panel of the Connecticut Superior Court convicted Francis of the shooting death of McKoy in the apartment they shared in the city's North End, said Joseph Corradino, the State's Attorney for the Judicial District of Bridgeport, in a release. 'In coming to their verdict, the judges found that Francis had failed to prove his affirmative defense of extreme emotional disturbance,' the State's Attorney said in the release. McKoy was the daughter of Jamaican reggae star Ricky Trooper, who has written about his daughter's murder on Instagram. 'Hate the 6th of April,' he wrote on April 5. 'That day the fassy took my baby away from us.2 years now and the pain only get worst (sic).' McKoy's family has been seeking justice for her since the fatal shooting. "Today we finally got that justice and it's been a long time coming," her mother, Camille Hemmings, told News 12. On the day McKoy was killed, she and Francis were arguing at their apartment when he shot her four times with a 9mm semiautomatic handgun, police said, News 12 reports. During closing arguments in Francis's trial, defense attorney Gerald Klein said Francis had "reached a breaking point" during his relationship with McKoy and called the homicide "a crime of passion,' the CT Post argued that Francis had initially said in one of his police interviews that he had to wrest the gun from McKoy, the CT Post reports. Later on, Francis said he found the gun in a drawer while looking for money he thought McKoy had allegedly taken, Corradino argued, according to the CT Post. Their son Zander was only 'a few feet away" when Francis fired the gun at McKoy, police said, according to News 12. "Baby Zander has not spoken a single word since that day,' Hemmings told News 12. 'He goes to therapy on a regular basis now to restore his speech." After the shooting, Francis fled the scene, setting off a national manhunt, according to the State's Attorney. Francis fled to Ohio, but was apprehended two days later when officers stopped a car he was riding in because they had an arrest warrant for the driver, the State's Attorney said. Francis ran from the officers during the traffic stop, but was captured after a short chase. Ohio officers recovered a gun under the vehicle's passenger seat that the Connecticut Forensic Science Laboratory determined was consistent with having fired the cartridge cases recovered from the crime scene, according to the State's Attorney. In a GoFundMe set up for Zander, the organizer wrote, "Camille Prince's daughter lost her life due to domestic violence." Hemmings told News 12 nothing can take away the pain of losing her daughter, but she is glad that her killer will serve out the next five decades behind bars. "He finally got what he deserved — 55 years. He will hopefully die in prison a lonely and miserable death," Hemmings told News 12. If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages. Read the original article on People
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Yahoo
CT police quash New England serial killer rumors, arrest man after woman found dismembered in suitcase
Officials in Groton, Connecticut, on Monday announced the arrest of a man in connection with the murder of Suzanne Wormser, 58, whose body was found dismembered and stuffed into a suitcase near a cemetery on March 19. Donald Coffel, Wormser's 68-year-old roommate, is charged with murder, tampering with physical evidence and disposing of a dead body in Connecticut Superior Court after police found Wormser's body on March 19, though they believe her remains were left in the cemetery sometime in mid-March. "Both the victim and the suspect knew each other. This was a targeted event," Groton Police Department Chief David Burton said during a Monday press conference announcing Coffel's arrest. Burton added that police searched another crime scene at the Groton residence Coffel and Wormser shared on April 17 and interviewed Coffel, a person of interest at the time who later became the primary suspect. New England Serial Killer Fears Merit 'Review And Investigation' After Remains Found Across 3 States: Expert Coffel allegedly confessed to the murder during his third interview with police, saying he beat Wormser with a baseball bat during an argument over crack-cocaine, according to an arrest warrant obtained by Fox 61. Authorities found a bat with blood and hair on it, as well as a hand saw and a woman's clothing covered in a blood-like substance inside the residence Coffel shared with Wormser, according to the warrant. Read On The Fox News App Coffel is being held on $1 million bond. He had a hearing from a hospital on Monday, where he is being treated for cancer, FOX 61 reported. The arrest warrant states that a passerby noticed a luggage bag placed by trash cans near the cemetery for several weeks. Inside the luggage, authorities discovered a human torso. Coffel's arrest is the first in a series of discoveries of 11 human remains across Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts between March and April that have prompted rumors of a serial killer online. "During the course of the police department's investigation, there have been many rumors and unsubstantiated fear-mongering taking place on social media, making this city and surrounding communities seem like unsafe places to live. I'm here to assure you that the City of Groton is among the safest communities in the Northeast," Groton Mayor Keith Hedrick said during a Monday press conference. "Approximately six weeks after the discovery of human remains at Colonel Ledyard Cemetery, I am pleased to announce that an arrest has been made, and a person of interest is in custody." SIGN UP TO GET True Crime Newsletter The Connecticut State Police told Fox News Digital earlier this month that "there is no information at this time suggesting any connection to similar remains discoveries, and there is also no known threat to the public at this time," regarding the deaths in Connecticut. Other remains have been located in New Haven, Norwalk, Groton, Killingly and now Rocky Hill, Connecticut; Foster, Rhode Island; and Framingham, Plymouth, Springfield, and now Taunton, Massachusetts. The New Haven Police Department recently identified a victim whose body was discovered on March 25 on Rock Creek Road as Denise Leary, 59. She had been missing since September of last year. Follow The Fox True Crime Team On X "At the time, we had no indication that there was any criminal aspect to her case," New Haven PD Public Information Officer Christian Bruckhart told Fox News Digital in a Tuesday interview. "This was not necessarily unusual behavior for her to leave. She had some mental health diagnoses that she was suffering with, and … we've tried to be cognizant of her family's feelings in this time because there was a time when she was missing, they wanted her to come back, then there were remains found a short distance from their house. So I'm sure they were hoping it wasn't her, and now they have to kind of go through all this again with sort of people online speculating about her." Bruckhart wants to remind the public that victims are not "just the face on the screen" New England Serial Killer Fears Grow As Police Downplay Threat Encroaching On Wealthy Coastal Enclaves "Her family is still suffering and grieving her loss," Bruckhart said. A medical examiner found Leary's cause and manner of death to be undetermined, but Bruckhard said there is no "indication that there's any criminal involvement." "That doesn't mean that we can definitively say there was not, but … in the totality of what we saw in our investigation, there was nothing to indicate that she was murdered," the officer said. Regarding the Wormser case in Groton, Bruckhart said police are "not seeing any links, certainly between Denise and anyone else," and they also do not see a connection between Coffel "and the city of New Haven in general." "In a case of an alleged serial killer, if there was some connection that we had or that we saw, or it was a particular area, or there was a motive or whatever, we would want to put that out because we want to protect the public," Bruckhart said. "That's what we do. Now, that's not to say that we would put out everything that we know, because again, if we're trying to catch this person. Holding some of those facts and not publicizing them might help the investigation, might help that person get caught. In the case of Denise, we don't see any of that." A Facebook group making unsubstatiated connections between the cases, which was formerly called "New England Serial Killer," has changed its name due to the social media company's policies and now has more than 68,000 article source: CT police quash New England serial killer rumors, arrest man after woman found dismembered in suitcase
