FARMINGTON— A lead investigator in the recent stabbing death of a 22-year-old local man testified in court Wednesday, saying the victim and one of the defendants may have had bad blood between them over a girl.
Christopher Gay, 26, and Cory Bennett, 21, both of Farmington, appeared in Rochester Circuit Court for probable cause hearings Wednesday afternoon.
Both men were arrested the night of Jan. 22 and charged with second-degree murder after a daylong investigation into the death of Ryan Stewart, 22, of 11 Worster St..
In court Wednesday, State Police Sgt. Jeffrey Ladieu, the lead investigator in the homicide, was questioned for nearly two hours by the state and defense teams of both defendants, sharing many details about the night of the murder, the investigation that led police to arrest Gay and Bennett, and what may have lead up to Stewart's death.
The crime was first reported by another tenant of 11 Worster St., Ladieu said, who told police she heard what sounded like an argument between three men in the apartment above hers around midnight on Jan. 22.
The witness told police she heard a number of voices yelling, including a male's voice that she described as "distinct" and sounding like an African-American male, Ladieu said.
According to Ladieu, the neighbor also told police that after hearing yelling coming from the upstairs apartment, she heard what sounded like a fight, and a short time later heard what she believed were two separate people running down the stairs of the apartment building.
Police department surveillance cameras show two individual entered and exited the apartment building around the time the witness told police she heard a fight, Ladieu said, although the video is poor quality and the individuals cannot be identified.
Shortly after hearing the individuals leave, Ladieu said, the woman heard a voice at her door and opened it to find Stewart, covered in blood. The woman ran to her telephone to call police and when she returned to the doorway Stewart had made his way down the stairs of the apartment building and to the main entrance.
It was outside the building, which sits across the street from the police station, where police found Stewart and the woman after the incident was reported.
Ladieu said officers responding to the scene found Stewart, shirtless, unresponsive and suffering from what appeared to be three significant stab wounds to the left side of his abdomen and chest and numerous lacerations and abrasions on his hands and arms, some of which the state medical examiner later determined to be defensive wounds.
Blood was found in the hallways and stairwells leading up to Stewart's apartment, Ladieu said, while large amounts of what appeared to be blood were found in Stewart's apartment on the floors, walls, and on his bed. Some of the areas of blood, he said, featured visible shoe prints.
An open safe, with a small amount of money next to it, was also found in Stewart's bedroom, Ladieu said, covered with what appeared to be blood and bloody fingerprints.
Soon after Stewart was taken from the scene to Frisbie Memorial Hospital and pronounced dead, Farmington and Rochester Police conducted a K-9 track beginning at the crime scene, Ladieu said. It was this track that initially led police to Gay, after the K-9 unit followed a scent from 11 Worster St. about a quarter-mile to 29 Bunker St., a multiunit apartment building where Gay lives.
Along the track, Ladieu said police found cans of Budweiser beer with red tabs that appeared to be recently left on the ground.
Upon arriving at 29 Bunker St., Ladieu said, an officer made contact with Gay, asking him about his whereabouts during the several hours surrounding Stewart's murder.
Gay, whom the officer noted had cuts on his hands and was consuming a beer featuring the same red tab as those found on the ground, told police he had been at home all night with his girlfriend and mother.
Police spoke with Gay's girlfriend while at his residence, who told them that she had been upstairs sleeping but that as far as she knew Gay had been downstairs all night.
The girlfriend later told police, Ladieu said, that Gay instructed her to tell police he had been home all night. She did not deny, however, that, to her knowledge, he had been.
After the initial contact with Gay, police kept an officer posted outside his residence the remainder of the day. It was this officer, Ladieu said, who saw Gay leave his house later in the day and place an object into a pile of snow near the woods at the back of the residence.
This same officer reportedly saw Gay leaving his home with Bennett a while later, carrying bags to a black Honda Civic driven by Gay's girlfriend.
Search warrants for Gay's residence, where it was later determined Bennett had been staying, the vehicle, and the two defendants themselves, were issued later on Jan. 22, he said.
During the search of 29 Bunker St., Ladieu said, police found blood on handrails leading up to the second floor of the building and "substantial" amounts of what appeared to be blood in a bathroom sink. Officers also discovered that the object Gay had placed in the snow was a bloody T-shirt for the band Dropkick Murpheys. Ladieu said friends told police Stewart owned such a shirt and was seen wearing it on the evening of Jan. 21.
During the search of the vehicle, Ladieu said police found a trash bag full of bloodied clothes, a knife stained with what appeared to be blood, sneakers, and brass knuckles, which he said were later determined to be made of a bicycle chain.
Another bag of clean clothes and toiletries, along with about $700 in cash were also found in the vehicle, he said. An object with Stewart's name on it was also found in the car, although Assistant Attorney General James Vara, the prosecutor in the case, declined to comment on what that object was.
According to Ladieu, it was during this investigation into the two men that police heard about what could have caused a disagreement between Bennett and Stewart — a girlfriend.
A friend of Stewart's told police he was with Bennett's former girlfriend, and that she was nervous and scared of Bennett after a recent breakup. The friend also told police the girlfriend had had a sexual relationship with Stewart in the week before his death, a story later corroborated by the girlfriend when talking with police, Ladieu said.
The girlfriend provided police with her cell phone, which she said Bennett sometimes used. Ladieu said he examined the phone himself, and found a text message between the phone and Gay's phone that discussed a safe, saying the safe "shouldn't be hard to break."
Ladieu could not tell the court Wednesday, however, when the message was sent.
During cross-examination of Ladieu by attorneys for both defendants, these text messages, along with the evidence police believe link the two men to the crime, were questioned.
Gay's attorney, Andrew Cotrupi, and Bennett's defense attorney, Emma Sisti, questioned whether there was any physical evidence linking the two men to Stewart's apartment.
Ladieu responded that while he believes the K-9 unit tracking from Stewart's apartment to Gay's residence is significant, any physical evidence such as blood or fingerprints found at the scene is still being analyzed by the state forensic lab.
Sisti questioned the items found in the vehicle in which Gay and Bennett were riding when they were stopped, asking whether police had found anyone during their investigation who could say whether the knife, brass knuckles, or clothing belonged to either defendant.
Ladieu said police have not been able to confirm the items belonged to the men, but said that it was the defendants who placed the items into the vehicle.
Cotrupi also questioned the neighbor's description of the male's voice she heard from Stewart's apartment, asking if Ladieu thought his client, who is not black, sounded like an African-American man.
Ladieu, who at first hesitated to answer the question, said Gay has a distinct voice and that he uses a lot of street slang, adding that while he may not describe his voice as "African-American," he could understand why the neighbor would describe it that way.
Still, Cotrupi told Judge Daniel Cappiello that he did not believe the state had been able to support its allegation that Gay was an active participant in the alleged crime.
After the hearing, Cotrupi said his client denies any involvement in Stewart's death.
"We don't know who the other person is, but it's certainly not him," he said.
Capiello took the case under advisement, and said he would make a decision on whether the state had provided probable cause for the charges issued by this morning.
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