Authorities have linked four sets of remains found last month behind a Connecticut shopping center where the partial skeletons of three women were discovered nearly a decade ago to a suspected serial killer who is behind bars on unrelated charges, police said Monday.
Police in New Britain announced the connection at a news briefing, though they did not identify the suspect or say on which charges he is currently imprisoned. They said there is no public danger.
If that theory proves true, the case would rival that of Connecticut's most notorious serial killer, Michael Ross, who admitted slaying eight women and girls in Connecticut and New York in the 1980s and was put to death in 2005 in New England's first execution in 45 years.
Police found the four new sets of remains April 28 behind the strip mall on Hartford Road where the partial remains of 53-year-old Diane Cusack, 23-year-old Joyvaline Martinez and 40-year-old Mary Jane Menard were recovered in 2007. All three women were last seen in 2003.
One of the newly discovered victims has been identified as Melanie Ruth Camilini, a mother of two from Seymour, Connecticut, who also was last seen in 2003. She was 29 years old.
The medical examiner is working to identify the other three victims and determine how they died.
Authorities have returned to the site behind the strip mall annually as they investigated the homicides of Cusack, Martinez and Menard, who were found by a hunter eight years ago in the woods; a specially trained FBI dog helped locate the new victims.
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The first three victims were last seen in the late summer or early fall of 2003 and lived in Connecticut at the time of their disappearances. They were believed to have frequented downtown New Britain and had known drug problems, New Britain Police Chief James Wardwell has said.
Cusack, of New Britain, had been out of contact with her family for years and was never reported missing, police said.
Martinez was last seen in October 2003. Her family has said she was unemployed and living with her mother, and relatives became concerned when she didn't show up for her birthday party.
Menard, of New Britain, was a substance abuse counselor who had a daughter serving oversees in the military when she disappeared that same October, police said.
In a strange coincidence, the body of a 17-year-old girl, later identified as Elizabeth Honsch, was found behind the same strip mall in 1995. A week later, the body of her mother, 53-year-old Marcia Honsch, was found near an entrance to Tolland State Forest in western Massachusetts. Both had been shot in the head.
Police have said they don't believe those two killings are related to the cases of Cusack, Martinez and Menard. Robert Honsch, Marcia's husband and Elizabeth's father, was charged with murder and awaits trial.
