Published: Saturday, September 24, 2011
By William Kaempffer
Special to the Bulletin
Police outside a home on Branca Court in Milford Friday.
MILFORD — Two people were dead Friday after what sources say police are investigating as a possible murder-suicide in a quiet, working-class development in the city’s northern end.
Police spokesman Officer Jeffrey Nielsen said detectives were investigating the deaths as “domestic in nature,” and said police were withholding the identities of the victims until all next of kin are notified.
He said he couldn’t confirm the murder-suicide theory, saying the investigation was in its early stages.
Police had been to the Branca Court home before on domestic complaints, however, according to court records.
The office of the chief medical examiner said autopsies were scheduled for this weekend for Kenneth Fox and Catherine Fox, who according to court and phone records, lived at 123 Branca Court, where the bodies were discovered.
Bridgeport police Officer Tom Minar, who lives on the street, said he had seen the husband early Friday.
“I actually saw him walking the dog this morning,” he said. The husband, identified in court documents as Kenneth Fox, 50, kept to himself, neighbors said.
Minar’s wife, Joyce, said the man, who lived in the house with his wife and son, never said much, even when they encountered each other walking their dogs.
She recalled a loud incident about a month ago, in which the husband and wife shouted at each other outside. He implored her to let him back inside because he didn’t want to lose his job, Joyce Minar said.
It never got physical and Minar didn’t call police, which she said she regrets now.
Some neighbors did call police, however. Kenneth Fox, 50, was arrested after a domestic dispute with his wife and 19-year-old son on Aug. 16. Police said Kenneth and Catherine Fox got into a verbal argument while in the car and, back at home, the father got into a physical altercation with his son. Both were arrested and later released on promises to appear in court.
A protective order against Kenneth Fox was issued barring any contact with the wife and son and requiring him to stay away from the house.
He returned the next day and was arrested for violating conditions of his release. According to a police report in the court file, when an officer told Fox his bail was $50,000 and offered him a phone call, Fox responded that he had “no one to call” and that he could not make the bond anyway. Court documents show bail was reduced to $2,500 in court but he still couldn’t afford to post it. On Sept. 13, a judge granted a motion for a further reduction and set bail at $1,000. Fox posted through a bondsman and was released after nearly four weeks in jail.
Court records show Fox worked for Pepsi Co. in Stratford.
The deaths rattled the quiet development, which was built about 20 years ago off Burnt Plains Road, north of Route 1.
oyce Minar called her son’s school and asked administrators not to send the 10-year-old home on the bus.
“I’m unnerved. I know we’re safe because the violence stayed inside the home. But it’s still a very unnerving feeling,” she said.
Gary Gauruder, president of the York Village Association of the neighborhood, said he knew the male victim to say hello to, but “not on a day-to-day basis.”
Asked to describe the complex, resident Bryant Nolan said just the word: “Quiet.”
Register Metro Editor Ed Stannard contributed to this story.
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