I'll Be Watching You (21 page)

I

As the Hartford PD put together a missing persons file on Carmen, Ned was in Cromwell, Connecticut, just south of Berlin. He had to put on a presentation for a client. The client had arranged for a babysitter so she could dedicate her full attention to Ned and his frozen-food pitch. In actual fact, the woman later said, she had already made up her mind to purchase the service before Ned arrived. She was impressed by Ned during the few times she had spoken to him on the phone.

Ned’s client and her husband sat in their dining room while Ned began. He seemed relaxed, ready to make his pitch. “He was dressed casual,” the woman later remembered, “but not in jeans. He may have worn a golf shirt. He did not appear hurried or bothered, but his presentation was very pre-rehearsed.”

Ned had done the pitch so many times that he could recite the thing while thinking about something else. As he carried on, almost sounding robotic, the woman interrupted, “Do you need a fan?”

Ned was “sweating profusely,” the woman later told police. So badly, in fact, that she brought out a fan to “cool him off.” The house wasn’t overly warm or cool, the woman noted. It was one of those perfect fall days. “I did not think it was too hot to be sweating so much, but I just thought Ned was a person who sweats a lot.”

II

One of the investigators who later studied and interrogated Ned told me that Ned was likely sweating so much because, at that moment, as he gave his frozen-food pitch, Carmen’s body was likely inside the trunk of his car out in the driveway. Ned was not known to be someone who sweat a lot. But when he got nervous—extremely nervous, that is—he had a propensity, several people later reported, to perspire like a long-distance runner. Still, although they never confirmed it through forensic evidence, ASA David Zagaja later said, “I believe, as well as my investigators, that Ned Snelgrove had Carmen’s dead body in the trunk of his car while he made that sales call.”

III

At some point that weekend, Jackie called one of her aunts and said she was worried that Miguel had taken Carmen. There was no motive anyone could decipher, but more or less a feeling Jackie had developed after thinking about the night she and Miguel searched for Carmen. After police told Jackie they believed Carmen had been at Kenney’s on the night she disappeared, Jackie thought back to when she, Miguel, and Carmen’s uncle had gone out looking for her. Jackie swore they had stopped at Kenney’s and Miguel took a walk inside the bar. If he had indeed done something to Carmen, he would have acted as if he had never seen her, especially inside the bar. Beyond that, Jackie reported that Carmen’s state card—she was on state assistance, food stamps, and welfare—was missing. Luz called Carmen’s social worker and explained the situation. She soon found out that $300 was missing from Carmen’s account and that it had been withdrawn from an ATM that Saturday afternoon, a day after Carmen was reported missing. Moreover, the surveillance video showed a man wearing a ball cap pulled down over his face, a man similar to Miguel’s height and weight. (“Miguel always wore hats,” Luz and Kathy Perez said.)

At this point, the family was sure Miguel had done something to Carmen. Maybe they didn’t know him the way they thought they had? Had they misjudged him?

As Luz and Kathy were driving down Park Street, looking for Carmen later that day, Miguel crossed the street in front of Luz’s car. “Miguel, do you have Titi’s card?” Luz yelled out the window. Miguel was standing on the sidewalk.

“No, I don’t got her card. I don’t got her card.”

“Miguel, somebody took out her money. She didn’t take it out. We want to know who did.”

Sometime later, Miguel showed up at the apartment and handed Jackie $300. “Where is she?” Jackie asked, crying. Hysterical. Scared. She started yelling, “You took Mommy’s money out…. You took Mommy’s money out!”

“I didn’t take her,” Miguel shot back.

“Someone took her money. Was it you?”

Miguel went quiet.

“Miguel?”

“We need the money for the rent,” he said brusquely. “I had to get it. We need to pay the rent so we can stay here.”

I

When Carmen’s friend Tina saw the missing persons posters strung up around Kenney’s and throughout the city, she became unnerved by something that had been bothering her ever since it happened.

As Tina and Alice sat at the bar one night talking about Carmen, Tina brought up Ned. “He tried to rape me,” Tina said. “Look at this.” She pointed to her neck.

“I don’t see anything,” Alice said.

“Look!” It was gone now, but Tina said she’d had bruises around her neck where Ned had tried to strangle her. “I
hate
him.”

“Everyone at the bar feels Ned did something to Carmen,” Alice told police later that day, “but no one knows for sure.”

These reports of Ned getting physical with some of the females who hung around Kenney’s began filing in as the Hartford PD started digging. One man who lived across the street from Kenney’s had a story to tell that became quite common where Ned and the girls of Kenney’s were concerned. “I used to work as a bar back at Kenney’s,” the man said. “I met a guy named Ned (back in March 2001). Ned was a ‘regular’ at the bar.” Ned showed up always between 9:00 and 11:00
P.M
. “[Ned told me] he got up at four-thirty every morning for work.” So he had to leave the bar early.

Ned’s routine changed, however, during the first week of September. He started closing the bar with the other patrons, the guy said.

The bar back said he knew Tina. “She used to flirt with everyone for a drink.”

He kept an eye on Tina because she was a relative. One night, the bar back slipped out into the back alley behind Kenney’s to have smoke. Ned was sitting in his car, he recalled, talking to Tina, who was standing by the driver’s side door. Ned had his window down. “I could not hear what they were saying,” the bar back recalled. “But [Tina] walked away” and began heading for Capitol Avenue. She was obviously upset at something Ned had said. So Ned got out of the car, yelling, “Come back, Tina. Please.”

Tina turned and walked back. They talked a little bit more near Ned’s car. He was trying to get her into his car, the bar back could easily tell, but she didn’t want to go.

“Stop it,” Tina said.

Ned grabbed her forcefully by the arm.

The bar back walked toward Ned’s car to see if Tina needed help. But she had “quickly” pulled her arm away from Ned and he had taken off hurriedly.

“Hey, you OK?” the bar back asked Tina.

“Yeah.” They headed back into the bar.

“Why’d he grab you like that?”

“He wanted me to get into his car and ‘go out for a date.’ I didn’t want to.”

II

Luz, Sonia, Kathy Perez, and the rest of the Rodriguez clan were beside themselves with concern and confusion. They had gotten together and talked about the many different scenarios that could have taken place, to see if, perhaps, anyone knew anything. By now, it was clear that Miguel didn’t have anything to do with Carmen’s disappearance, so they all apologized and he understood. Tempers were fragile. Feelings raw. Miguel was the new kid on the block—it was easy and convenient to accuse him.

Luz had a thought: There was a guy back in 2000 who had been obsessed with Carmen. She had dated him for a few days, realized he was a freak show, and told him never to come near her again. During their last conversation, the man snapped. Raped her repeatedly and then beat her so severely she wound up in the hospital. “She was in bed with the covers over her when I arrived at the hospital,” Luz recalled. “I thought she was dead…. When she lifted the covers off her face, I gasped.” Carmen was covered with welts and bruises and blood. Luz couldn’t believe it was her sister.

“My God, Titi,” she said.

Carmen was quiet. She didn’t speak. Eventually she was released from the hospital and a report was filed. Sometime later, the guy—a serial rapist—was arrested and charged with a host of rapes.

III

Living with the unsettled notion that a loved one is out in the world somewhere in trouble is an ugly feeling, the Rodriguez family explained. There’s a part of your spirit dormant, lost. In purgatory. Nothing in your life is quite right. You wake up every day thinking this is it, someone is going to come forward with that tip that will lead you to her. You hang on every word from law enforcement. Your heart races whenever the phone rings.

At one point, after Telemundo ran Carmen’s photo and a description, Luz got a call from someone in Willimantic, Connecticut. “There’s a woman hanging around here that fits the description of your sister. She doesn’t know her name or where she’s from.”

It was a Laundromat.
Could it be?
Luz wondered.
Maybe Carmen fell and wandered off and had amnesia?
It happened.

“We’ll be right out there,” Luz said. Then she called Sonia and Kathy, and they all rushed out to Willimantic, about a thirty-minute trip. (“We got there,” Kathy said, “and it was like, ‘There’s nobody here. Yeah, there’s a lady here, but we know who she is….’”)

“But we received a phone call from here,” Kathy asked, “that you had someone fitting the description.”

“No one from here called,” the woman said.

Hope was all the Rodriguez family had left, and they weren’t about to give up. “The thing was,” Luz explained, “and it started to bother me as time went on, that no matter where Carmen was, she had always called one of us. Always, always, always. She called. That was in the back of my mind.”

I

Ned had been a fixture at Kenney’s during the spring, summer and early fall of 2001. During the first three weeks of September, he was at the bar nearly every other night: sitting and drinking, playing pool, talking to the other regulars about baseball, politics, and the terrorist attacks. And yet, since the night Carmen had disappeared, no one at the bar had seen or heard from Ned. He had stopped showing up altogether.

By the end of the first week of looking for Carmen, the family was determined that if Carmen was around Hartford, they were going to find her. Twenty-three-year-old Jeffrey Malave grew up in Hartford. He was a “lifelong friend,” he later told police, of the Rodriguez family. Malave’s best friend, Hector “Cutie” (pronounced “koo-tee”) Velez, was Carmen’s nephew. Malave also hung around with Carmen’s daughter Jackie. On the Wednesday afternoon after Carmen disappeared, Jackie and Cutie explained to Malave that Carmen had vanished the previous Friday night. No one had seen her since. They were worried about her, he explained, and wanted to help any way they could. Everyone felt the Hartford PD was working on the case, but then, what did they have to go on at this point? Just the other day, an officer had called Jackie and confirmed that the last place Carmen had been seen was at Kenney’s, not the El Camerio, as Jackie had initially believed. In the interim, Jackie and Miguel, who had been climbing the walls, calling the HPD, combing the neighborhoods around Kenney’s, asking locals if they had seen anything, had not stopped searching. Miguel hadn’t slept in what seemed like days. He was prostrated with grief and worry, same as Jackie. Miguel had spoken to a bartender at Kenney’s who explained she was certain that Carmen had left the bar at about 2:00
A.M
. on September 22 with a regular. (“The bartender told us,” Jackie said in a statement to police, “the man’s name…[and that] he left with my mother that night…after drinking and dancing with her.”)

Jackie explained this to Malave, who couldn’t sit idle. He had to do
something.

So he walked down to Kenney’s to see if anyone “knew what might have happened to Carmen.” The first person he ran into was “the guy who watches the cars outside [the bar].”

“The last time I saw Carmen,” the guy—whom they all called “John the Security Guard”—told Malave, “was the night she left with that guy Ned.”

“Ned?” Malave asked.

“Yeah. I saw Carmen get into Ned’s car and they drove down Lawrence Street, away from Capitol Avenue.”

“How was Carmen?”

“She seemed really drunk. Ned was kind of holding her up as they walked.”

“Who’s Ned?”

“He’s a regular. Here all the time. The bartender knows him. Ask Paula.”

Malave found Paula, who knew Carmen and Jackie. “Ned’s a regular,” she confirmed. “He comes in almost every day.”

“Have you seen him lately?”

“Not since Carmen’s been gone.”

“Thanks,” Malave said as he started for the door. But he stopped just before walking out. “Hey, Paula,” he said, “give me or Jackie a call the next time you see Ned.”

Paula promised she would.

II

Several days later, Paula called Jackie. It was 8:00
P.M
. Malave was with Jackie, consoling her. “Ned’s here,” Paula said.

“He’s there?”

“Yeah.”

Jackie hung up, immediately called the Hartford PD, and explained Ned was at Kenney’s. They needed to get down there at once and talk to him about Carmen, she insisted. If he was the last person with Carmen, he may be able to tell them where she went. Perhaps he’d given her a ride?

By the time Jackie got off the phone with the Hartford PD, Miguel was leading them to Kenney’s, hoping, of course, to talk to Ned. Miguel wasn’t giving up—especially since he and Jackie had gotten what could be called a substantial lead in hearing that Ned was the last person to be seen with Carmen. An average-size man, Miguel was not someone many people tangled with. He was calm, quite friendly, and not someone to go around looking for trouble. Still,
I’m going to beat his ass,
Miguel thought as he stomped his way toward Kenney’s.

Miguel ran into John the Security Guard, whom Malave had spoken to. He asked him about Carmen. “She left with Ned, a white guy. He hasn’t been in here since Carmen turned up missing.”

Miguel and John were standing by Kenney’s front door. Jackie, Cutie, and Malave were standing by the road, waiting for Miguel to finish. As Miguel talked, John spied Ned inside the bar walking toward them. “That’s him right there.”

“That’s him?” Miguel asked.

“Yup.”

Trying to be sly, Ned walked up to Miguel and stuck out his hand.

The nerve of this guy.

Miguel refused.

Ned turned and walked back into the bar hurriedly after seeing Jackie, Malave, and Cutie walking toward him. He sensed some hostility.

John walked down the block a ways, heading toward the side of the building, while Miguel and the others stood by the front door and waited. They didn’t want to lose sight of Ned. They kind of had him cornered now: whichever door he came out of, someone would be there. It was clear Ned was trying to get away.

“Miguel…,” John yelled, “Ned’s leaving. He’s running down Lawrence Street.”

Ned had walked back into the bar and slipped out the side door before anyone saw him.

But Miguel took off running and caught Ned as he was just about to get into his car. “I want to talk to you,” Miguel shouted.

“About
what
?”

“You got my wife,” Miguel insisted, although “wife” was more of a term of endearment. “I want her back.”

“I’m sorry,” Ned said, dropping his head.

“Where is she?” Miguel screamed.

“I dropped her off at the gas station on Capitol and Broad.”

“Bullcrap! I know you got her.” Miguel was ready to pummel Ned.

Ned began to mumble. He seemed disoriented.

Alarmed.

Scared.

As much as Ned had been involved in violence against women throughout his life, and felt he could wrestle with the best of his peers, he hated confrontation.

“I…I…I took her to eat at New Britain [Avenue] and Broad Street,” Ned said, changing his story.

Jackie and the others arrived at Ned’s car, out of breath. “Where’s my mom?” Jackie said quite firmly. There was a tickle of scratchiness in her voice: anger mixed with sadness.

Ned put his head down, Jackie later said. Then, in a low voice, he said, “Oh,
that
was
your
mom? I’m sorry.” As he said it, however, Ned took off again toward the side entrance of the bar.

“Hey,” Miguel shouted.

They ran after him as Malave screamed, “Hey, we just want to
talk
to you.”

Ned quickly slipped back into the bar through a side entrance, saying frantically, “There’s some people out there that are going to get me.”

The owner walked over. “What are you talking about?”

“There’s people out there—”

“Who? Who is going to get you?”

The bar owner went for the door and opened it. He saw Jackie and the others running toward the door. Stopping them, he said, “Whoa, what’s the problem here?”

Shouts and mumbles. No one made sense.

“Let’s go into the bar and sit down and figure this out,” the owner said.

“We want him,” Malave said, “to call the police and contact the police about Carmen. He seen her.”

After a moment, Cutie, Miguel, Jackie, and Malave rushed into the bar, past the owner. When they got inside, Ned was pacing between two pool tables. He looked nervous. More frightened than ever. He had something in his hand he was holding up—waving—in the air. “I’ll pay fifty dollars to anyone who takes these people out of here,” Ned shouted. Panicked, he was sweating, pacing, looking around the bar, hoping someone would take him up on his offer.

According to Jackie, two men “stepped up and blocked us from going into the bar area,” where Ned had wandered. “Come on,” Jackie said to them, “I need to talk to him,” pointing.

The bar owner quickly stepped in between them. This gave Ned a sense of “relief,” Malave later explained. The owner wanted to know what was going on.

“We’re just trying to ask Ned a few questions,” Malave said.

“Ned, sit down over there,” the manager explained. “Get him a drink on me,” he shouted to the bartender, asking Malave to sit down across from Ned.

Talk it out. No trouble in here, he warned.

Jackie, Cutie, and Miguel stood behind Malave and stared at Ned.