Friday, April 30, 2010

Bridgewater, CT: Police search ex-husband's home in Newtown cold case

John Pirro, Staff Writer
Published: 10:24 p.m., Thursday, April 29, 2010

BRIDGEWATER -- Investigators on Thursday searched the Bridgewater home of a former Newtown man whose ex-wife's body was found earlier this month, 26 years after he reported her missing.

Newtown police, assisted by State Police detectives, spent several hours at the Keeler Road home of John Heath, whose ex-wife, Elizabeth, vanished in April 1984.

Newtown police said investigators had obtained a state Superior Court

warrant to search the premises as part of the

investigation of Elizabeth Heath's death, but refused to provide any other details,

Attempts to contact John Heath at the telephone number listed for the address were unsuccessful.

Elizabeth Heath was 30 years old in April 1984 when she disappeared from her Poverty Hollow Road home, leaving behind a young daughter and all of her belongings.

John Heath reported her missing in April 1984. The couple was in the midst of a divorce, which John Heath later obtained before marrying another woman.

Elizabeth Heath's family had her declared dead seven years later.

But on April 14, the owners of the Heaths' former Newtown property were renovating a basement apartment in what once had been a barn when they discovered a skeleton in a chamber beneath the subfloor.

The remains were identified as Elizabeth Heath. Police classified the death as a homicide, but haven't disclosed how she died.

The dead woman's sister, Helen Gough, of Bridgeport, told The News-Times that her former brother-in-law built the apartment.

Heath lost the Newtown property to foreclosure in 2005, according to town records, and moved to Bridgewater.

Contact John Pirro

at jpirro@newstimes.com

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