[ad_1]
Peter Manfredonia was sentenced to 55 years in jail for killing two folks, injuring one other, holding a person hostage and kidnapping a girl in 2020.
Ned Gerard/AP
conceal caption
toggle caption
Ned Gerard/AP
Peter Manfredonia was sentenced to 55 years in jail for killing two folks, injuring one other, holding a person hostage and kidnapping a girl in 2020.
Ned Gerard/AP
A Connecticut court docket issued a second 55-year jail sentence to a person who attacked two folks with a samurai sword, killing one and severely injuring the opposite.
It is the second sentence — and an identical in size — for Peter Manfredonia, 26, who additionally fatally shot a person and kidnapped his girlfriend earlier than main police on a six-day manhunt throughout a number of states in 2020.
Manfredonia was a senior finding out finance and mechanical engineering on the College of Connecticut when he “simply flipped,” in line with his arrest warrant, and fatally struck 62-year-old Theodore DeMers with a sword on Could 22, 2020 exterior the person’s residence in Wilmington, Conn.
Manfredonia then attacked the person who got here to DeMers’ rescue, John Franco, who was 80 years previous on the time, leaving him with extreme accidents to his palms, neck and head.
Manfredonia broke into a close-by residence and took a 3rd man hostage for twenty-four hours. A day later, he drove throughout the state to Derby and fatally shot a former classmate and kidnapped that classmate’s girlfriend. He let her go, bodily unhurt, at a relaxation cease in New Jersey.
After a six-day search, police arrested Manfredonia at a truck cease in Hagerstown, Md., with out incident.
On Wednesday, the defendant was sentenced to 55 years in jail for the second killing and the kidnapping. On Thursday, he was sentenced to an extra 55 years in jail for the sword assaults, court docket paperwork present.
Between the 2 instances, Manfredonia pleaded responsible to 5 counts of homicide, assault, kidnapping and residential invasion. Each of his sentences will run concurrently, and he agreed to not search early launch as a part of his plea bargains, The Related Press stories.
The victims and their households in each instances agreed to the plea cut price after months of dialogue, in line with reporting from Connecticut Public Radio.
This weeks’ sentencing hearings got here with a number of days of emotional testimony from victims and eyewitnesses.
Cindy DeMers, the widow of the person killed by samurai sword, instructed the court docket she believed her husband’s killer deserved the loss of life penalty, regardless that Connecticut outlawed capital punishment in 2016.
“It was like being in a struggle zone,” she stated, in line with the Related Press. “All I may concentrate on was reassuring Ted that he was going to be OK and we might put his physique again collectively. We are going to get by this. We had gotten by a lot collectively up till this level.
“He was nonetheless alive when he was taken away, however he by no means got here residence,” she added. “My husband’s life was stolen from him viciously. Life as I knew it [was] stolen from me. My world as I knew it got here to an finish.”
State Lawyer Matthew Gedansky stated that Manfredonia was in DeMers’ neighborhood as a result of he deliberate to kill his ex-girlfriend, who lived close by, the AP reported. Michael Dolan, the defendant’s lawyer, stated his consumer has bipolar illness and nervousness and was truly planning to commit suicide in entrance of the girl as a part of a psychotic episode.
Witnesses stated DeMers thought Manfredonia had crashed his motorbike and was providing to assist when he was attacked, in line with a number of media accounts of the trial.
Mafredonia apologized twice in court docket this week, directing separate feedback to every of the victims and their households.
[ad_2]
