I'll Be Watching You (28 page)

I

Ned’s phone was ringing. Reporters were knocking on his door. But Ned didn’t want anything to do with publicizing what was going on in his life. If not because of the embarrassment, for the sake of his parents. They were old and ailing. And now with Ned’s life becoming a major news story, the added weight of constantly being under a microscope was overwhelming. In addition, Ned believed the New Jersey newspapers had made him out to be a monster years ago, up there with the likes of his so-called mentor, Bundy, and although he secretly devoured the attention, he made it clear that he felt betrayed and was being set up by a group of cops out to get him.

In light of it all, however, Ned used the new opportunity to plead his case. As the Stratford story surfaced and a victim’s name made it into the newspapers—Shani Baldwin, a twenty-one-year-old woman who had been found stabbed to death in her home in 2001—Ned gave a brief interview to the Associated Press, saying, “I gave them fingerprints…but it’s important that both sides of the story be printed.” Yet, that other “side” Ned referred to never materialized as Ned refused to elaborate or discuss the matter further.

Ned had an eerie sense about him. His enunciation, especially to those who did not know him, might have come across as overconfident and even patronizing. But he couldn’t help himself. He drew attention to himself by the things he did—attention, maybe, he enjoyed—albeit good, bad, or indifferent. In every news story published about the search and Carmen’s body being found in Rhode Island, those two cases from New Jersey tagged along with Ned’s name in the lead paragraph as if they were part of a life’s résumé, which, in a certain sense, they were. This made Ned feel as if he were being judged by his prior conduct—crimes for which, he said over and over, he had paid his debt to society. When reporters asked Ned if he knew Carmen, he said he wasn’t going to comment on the case. Yet when
Hartford Courant
reporter Ken Byron caught up to Ned one day and asked him if he killed Carmen, Ned replied, “I did not kill her.”

There may have been some truth to Ned’s statement—because, inside the next few years, one of the many bizarre twists in the murder of Carmen Rodriguez would be that a man—that same man who had been obsessed with Carmen and raped her—would make a deathbed confession that he had killed her.

I

On the morning of January 24, 2002, Ned was arrested and formally charged with attempted kidnapping and third-degree assault. The arrest stemmed from that night shortly before Carmen went missing when Ned allegedly grabbed Christina Mallon outside Kenney’s. When they showed up at his house, detectives didn’t tell Ned why they were arresting him. But he assumed it was for Carmen’s murder.

Ned didn’t put up any resistance, but instead acted as if the CSP—who had taken over control of the investigation by this point—had nothing on him. He laughed and joked with the officers placing him into a squad car.

Back at Troop H in Hartford, Ned sat quietly as detectives entered the room, one of whom said, “You think this is for the murder of Carmen Rodriguez?”

Ned looked at each officer. “Huh?” He was shocked. “What do you mean?”

“You’re under arrest for the attempted kidnapping and assault of [Christina Mallon].”

“I’m surprised by that,” Ned said, shaking his head. “You’ve
got
to be kidding.”

II

Ned was arraigned the following morning, his bond set at $500,000. And his next court date scheduled for February 5. Later that night, someone from the HPD called Luz Rodriguez. “We brought him in.”

Luz sighed. “Thanks for calling.”

“You should know, though, that we haven’t arrested him for Carmen’s murder. We brought him in on another charge.”

“I’m confused.”

“Don’t worry about it,” the detective said.

Luz hung up the phone, feeling ambivalent. The end result was that Ned had been arrested. But why wasn’t he being charged with Carmen’s murder? (“We were told,” Luz explained to me later, “that this first arrest was the beginning of the end. We had no idea it would turn out the way it did.”)

III

On the day the CSP searched the Snelgrove residence, crime scene investigators submitted several items to the Department of Public Safety, Forensic Science Laboratory, in Meriden, Connecticut, for DNA and forensic analysis. Criminalist Maria Warner was assigned the contents of a trash barrel found in Ned’s room. A substance located inside the barrel was suspected to be blood. Warner quickly tested it and determined it to be human blood.

Had Ned made a mistake? None of the other pieces of trash turned up anything useful for David Zagaja. But what about this blood? Whose was it?

IV

There was a sinkhole—a large scallop—in the backyard of the Snelgrove neighbor’s house. It appeared to be
consistent with being recently created,
an affidavit accompanying Ned’s arrest explained. There was no grass over the divot, which led detectives to believe that someone had (just recently) dug a hole and covered it up.

Detectives got hold of the owner of the house on Tuesday, January 29, 2002, and explained that they needed to get into the yard to conduct a search and, like archaeologists, sift through some of the dirt with screens. Ned was in jail, exactly where they wanted him. The kidnapping and assault charges were going to trial. Ned was not going to plead his case.

“No problem,” the owner of the house said. “My mother died years ago. The place has been vacant since 1999.”

As crime scene investigators approached the sinkhole, someone noticed a black plastic bag protruding from the ground. “You see that,” the investigator said, pointing.

They dug the bag up.

It was empty.

After spending the day searching the yard, nothing else was uncovered. But the bag—that bag had to be significant. What did it explain?

A theory soon developed. Based on the discovery in the neighbor’s yard, some detectives began to look at how Carmen’s body had been found in Rhode Island. The Hopkinton crime scene showed no signs of being disturbed by animals. If the body had sat in those woods in garbage bags from September 22, 2001, the day Carmen was reported missing, to January 6, 2002, when Peter Mareck found it, many believed wildlife in the area would have at least ripped the bag open or tried getting at it. Furthermore, renowned forensic scientist Dr. Henry Lee made what, at first, appeared to be an important discovery while studying the “secondary” crime scene photographs. (Secondary because investigators believed Ned had killed Carmen in Connecticut and transported her body to Rhode Island.) Analyzing the photographs microscopically, Lee noticed that the leaves around the area where the garbage bag was found were “dry, so it has to be around fall.” Moreover, there was no “dated material growth through the bags…. If, say, longer than a year [had expired],” Lee said, “…usually something can grow through the bags, through the hole, because that area [is] going to be very fertile and you see a lot of new shoots coming out. So that tells me [it] has to be relative, you know, under six months, cannot be over, over a year.”

Some believed that as soon as the Hartford PD started sniffing around, asking questions, Ned moved Carmen’s body from the neighbor’s yard (or another location) to Rhode Island, sensing that a search of his home was imminent.

“You can see little branches
around
the body,” Lee explained. “But no branches sticking through the body area. If this body [had] been there…usually we see something grow through the body.”

For detectives, based on their training and experience, knowing that Ned had spent years in prison studying Bundy’s manner of drawing unsuspecting women into his web, realizing he had, upon his release,
improved
on his MO by meticulously wrapping women in various articles of linen and transporting their bodies to various locations, like Bundy, it was their interpretation that
animals will disturb a body left out in the open for an extended period of time,
said the affidavit for Ned’s arrest.
Based on this, it is reasonable to assume that Carmen Rodriguez’s body may have been moved to the place it was found from another location
after
police contacted Edwin Snelgrove and conducted the first search warrant on his automobile.

“We did some testing and analysis on the bag found in the neighbor’s yard and found nothing,” David Zagaja told me. “There was some speculation that maybe he moved her body at a later time. But I don’t think he did. I think he placed Carmen’s body in Rhode Island on that weekend of September 22 to 23, 2001.”

It was easy to figure out that between the end of September and beginning of January, at least in the Northeast, nothing generally grew wild in the forests. That would explain the bag not being covered with fresh undergrowth. There were dry leaves scattered around the bag and on top of it, which meant that the body had been placed in the Rhode Island woods
before
the month of October when leaves started falling.

Still, how to attest to no animals getting into the bag?

Carmen’s killer used nearly one dozen garbage bags to wrap up her body. Stapled and taped them all together so it couldn’t—or wouldn’t—leak fluids or emit smells. To this, David Zagaja added, “We played around with the possibility that he moved her—put it this way, we’re not sure. I think Ned made that trip on that weekend. And remember, the trip being made on
that
weekend matches with the mileage evidence we uncovered.”

I

Carmen’s body was released by the medical examiner’s office in late January. The Rodriguez family was getting nervous because Carmen’s brothers and sisters in town from Puerto Rico had taken a considerable amount of time off from work to support other family members and be there to bury Carmen. The theme of the burial—if the horror of losing Carmen under such violent means could have one—was
“¿Madre, por qué me dejas?”

“Mother, why you leave me?”

For the family, telling Jackie, Carmen’s daughter, was the most difficult. Luz had called Jackie the day the Hartford PD confirmed they made a positive identification. Jackie, who was still living in the apartment Carmen had rented with Miguel, rushed to her grandmother’s house where everyone had gathered. That line
“¿Madre, por qué me dejas?”
was from one of Carmen’s favorite songs. After the family had told Jackie what happened, she rushed out of the house, drove home, grabbed the CD, and rushed back. Walking in, she didn’t say anything. Instead, she put on the CD.

“It was a bit surprising,” Luz remembered, “because if someone is dead, or murdered, we never play music for like one month. Supposedly, it’s bad luck.” Respect the deceased. It was a tradition the family valued. Carmen’s mother had brought it to America from the old country and the family continued it.

But Carmen’s death had changed everything. It was no ordinary celebration of life, as most funerals are.

As the song played, Jackie walked into the kitchen where everyone was standing, sat down at the table, and just let it all out. “Listen,” she said, referring to the lyrics, “it’s about me and Mommy.”

From that day on, the family played the song over and over. At the wake. The funeral. Anytime they visited Carmen’s grave site. There were those words: “Mother, why you leave me?”

II

The Rodriguez family was more united than ever. Since Carmen was buried, Luz, Sonia, and Kathy Perez had made T-shirts with a photograph of Carmen on the front. She was smiling her radiant glow. Those eyes. That sincere happiness flushed across her face.

Titi.

On the T-shirt, Carmen was surrounded by a red rose and pearls and baby’s breath. In Spanish, the family wrote a message in big block letters on the top:
NUNCA OLVIDAREMOS
.

“Never forget.”

A dedication more to the court and Ned Snelgrove than to themselves.

III

On February 5, Ned was scheduled to be back in court. Inside the courtroom, as the day progressed, twenty of Carmen’s family and friends sat patiently in the first three rows and waited to see the man they believed had killed Carmen. (“We knew he did it,” Luz later told me. “We wanted to show our strength. Our unity. That Ned had picked the wrong victim in choosing to murder Carmen.”)

What they learned, however, was that Ned had been released nine years early on a prior sentence of twenty years. (“We were furious,” Luz added. “He never should have been out on the street to begin with. But we were united. We were planning on seeing this through until the end—that is, until he was put away for good for the murder of my sister.”)

They waited all morning.

No Ned.

Lunchtime came and went.

No Ned.

Finally, near three o’clock…there he was: the monster.

During his five minutes in front of the judge, Ned never looked at the Rodriguez family as his case was continued to the end of the month.

Sonia was most troubled by the events. The oldest female of Carmen’s siblings, Sonia had not taken her sister’s murder well. She’d had her share of problems with Carmen—they butted heads—but the relationship was on the mend when Carmen disappeared. Still, most heartbreaking to the family was that Esmeralda Garcia, a name Carmen had given to Jackie for her first grandchild, was born after Carmen’s death. Carmen had never got to see, or hold, or play with, her only grandchild.