911 call transcript from grandmother who killed herself yesterday

Marcia Maglisco, 62, was caring for her 2-year-old grandson in West Hartford when the boy drowned last week.

Here’s the Transcript of her 911 Call To West Hartford Police On Oct. 5, 2007

Williams: West Hartford Police Fire Dispatcher Williams

Maglisco: Um, yes, um I’m at 14 Foxridge Road. I need the police to come and arrest me, I drowned my grandson.

Williams: You did what now?

Maglisco: I drowned my grandson. I need to.

Williams: [Unintelligible] Ok, Ok, how old is this child? and Ok, are you home alone?

Maglisco: Yes, I’m in their home.

Williams: 14 Foxridge?

Maglisco : Yes

Williams: Is is he …Oh, ok your saying he’s deceased?

Maglisco: Yes

Williams: Are you, [unintelligible] when did you do this, just now?

Maglisco: Yes

Williams: Ok, well is there a way you can um do something to try to bring him back?

Maglisco: No

Williams: Are you sure you do not want to attempt to bring him back?

Maglisco: I can’t. I’m just a grandmother .. I have mental problems. I’m a very bad [unintelligible]

Williams: How old of a child is it?

Maglisco: Two

Williams: It’s two years old?

Williams: I want you to stay on this line.

Maglisco: I’m gonna go put his clothes on, I called the mother to come home. I want the police to shoot me, if they could.

Williams: Is he still in the water?

Maglisco: No.

Williams: You’ve taken him out of the water?

Maglisco: Yes I have.

Maglisco: He’s just deceased. They don’t need an ambulance. The mother’s coming, please help.

[Williams cuts in:]

Williams: You are the grandmother?

Maglisco: Yes I am.

Williams: What is your name?

Maglisco: Marcia Maglisco

Williams: Magusto?

Maglisco: Maglisco, yes.

Williams: And you will not do anything to try to attempt to bring the child back?

Maglisco: I tried, I can’t.

Maglisco: I’m psychotic, pause …he was in the tub, he slipped, he banged his head and I just left him.

Williams: How long ago was this … how long ago?

Maglisco: About ten minutes.

Williams: Ten minutes?

Maglisco: Mmhmm .. I have to go and wait for the mother.

Maglisco: I need you to help the mother, please help the mother.

Williams: Well, where’s the mother at?

Maglisco: She’s I called her to come from work, I told her her son’s dead, she’s coming. I’ll be right I’ll have the door open so you’ll [unintelligible] can take me, Thank you, bye.

Williams: I want you to stay on this line hello?

Maglisco: I have to go up and get him ready so she won’t see him undressed okay?

Williams: No, don’t touch that baby, unless you’re going to do something to try and bring him back.

Maglisco: All right, I will, bye.

Williams: Hello?

[Phone line disconnects.]

Timeline fuzzy on Cheshire killings

One of the most perplexing aspects of the Petit murders in Cheshire is the seemingly slow response of local police.

Part of the reason there’s such rampant speculation that the police botched the job – and perhaps lost the chance to save three lives – is that authorities are inexcusably withholding key information, including 911 calls, dispatch records, police log books and surveillance tapes. Since they have the suspects in custody, and nobody appears to think they had any outside help, there’s no reason to hold back such crucial stuff except to protect the police.

I’ve tried to put the timeline together as best I could from stories that have been published so far.

Deb Biggins, a Cheshire resident, told The New Haven Register on July 27 that she saw Jennifer Hawke-Petit enter the Bank of America branch at Maplecroft Plaza about 9:30 a.m.

“She looked taut, tense and very pale,” said Deb Biggins, a town resident who was opening a new account at the branch when Hawke-Petit entered and withdrew $15,000.

“After she saw Hawke-Petit leave the branch unaccompanied a few minutes after 9:30 a.m., Biggins saw the teller who waited on her leave her post carrying a piece of paper,” according to the story.
“Minutes later, police arrived at the bank, she said, and left a short time later,” the New Haven paper reported.

We don’t know for sure whether the police sent officers to both the bank and the Petit house at the same time. They may have gone to the bank first and then to the house. Stories conflict on the point, though a state police spokesman said officers initially went to both locations.

We also don’t know for sure what the note said that Hawke-Petit gave the teller. The wording would make a difference in the appropriate response, certainly.

In any case, we know from multiple sources that the fire department in town got a call at 10 a.m. from officers arriving at the Petit house.So what’s uncertain is what happened between, say, 9:35 a.m. and 10 a.m.

We know that Hawke-Petit returned home, which is about 8 minutes from the bank.

Between 9:40 a.m. and a few minutes before 10 a.m., the deadly duo strangled Hawke-Petit, set the house on fire (and perhaps poured the gasoline around first) and raced out of the place just after police began arriving.

We know that the first officer to respond heard one or both of the girls screaming as the flames rose inside.

According to The New York Times, State Police Lieutenant Paul Vance said the first police officer to arrive at the Petit house saw that it was on fire and saw two men trying to flee in a car. When the officer tried to block the men, they rammed his police cruiser, Vance said. The officer then called for help, and fellow members of the Cheshire Police Department positioned two more police cars nose-to-nose as a barricade a few houses away, The Times reported.

“A neighbor, Anton Rao, an optometrist who described himself as a close friend of the Petits’, said the two men drove into the police barricade at close to 60 miles per hour, and crashed through it before their car broke down and came to a halt,” according to The Times.

What’s interesting about that is that pictures clearly show the police cars were parked to block the road – and no officers were injured. So they had already stopped and gotten out of the way before the two thugs crashed into the cars.

Tyhe New York Post said that Vance describd a scene in which the two men ran from the house, jumped into Petit’s SUV and “tore out of the driveway and sped off, but almost immediately rammed into two police cars hidden around a corner.”

What were the police cars doing “hidden around a corner?”

That kind of makes me think they had set up a perimeter before moving in at all, time that may have doomed the Petit family, sort of like the police at Columbine in 1999 who didn’t go storm into the school in time to save anyone.

But, to be fair, it’s also possible the police did nothing wrong.

What’s alarming to me is that the information the public needs to make a decision remains secret, for no reason that makes any sense.

Give us the facts. Release everything.

No matter what’s eventually made clear, the one sure thing is that a great evil was perpetrated in Cheshire by two dirtballs who aren’t worth the air they breathe.

It’s terrifying to realize, as we are so often forced to do, that we live in a world with all too many sick, crazy, evil people who commit unspeakable atrocities. And the police, however perfect they are, can never stop them all.

   

Cheshire murders

I’ve been reading every scrap about this awful, awful massacre of Dr. William Petit’s wife and two daughters. It fills me with disgust, and worries me, too, because I can’t see that anyone screwed up in letting these two animals out on the streets. Despite criminal pasts, they’d never been charged with anything violent. They just didn’t appear to have much about them that would clued anybody in that they could act with such complete evil against such innocents.

I think that’s what makes this especially sickening to our collective soul. The crime is horrendous, of course, but so, too, is the deadening feeling that there’s nothing anyone could have done to stop it.

I just can’t stop thinking of poor Dr. Petit, who lost so much more than anyone ever should. Watching his speech at the memorial service yesterday just about broke my heart.

Girl under the stairs

Talk about a weird, troubling tale. This is awful on more levels than I care to contemplate. I hope those who played a role all wind up rotting behind bars forever.

Home invasion on Exeter Avenue last night

See The Hartford Courant story.

Stupid guy from Bristol

Stealing a car with a bad muffler was 25-year-old Samual Ramos’s first mistake, but hardly the biggest.

Ramos, a Bristol resident, stole the 1984 Buick LeSabre in Bristol but came to the attention of West Hartford police when he refused to pull over after officers noticed the loud muffler, according to a weekend story in The Hartford Courant.

He dumped the car near Trout Brook Drive and vanished – until the next morning when he tried to force his way into a Trout Brook home.

That was mistake number two.

The ex-military homeowner managed to fight off Ramos and “had no trouble” subduing the guy until police arrived, the paper reported.

Ramos had spent the night sleeping in a car outside, and apparently wanted to make a phone call to help him escape the area.

Instead, he’ll be sleeping in a cell for a long, long time.

It doesn’t pay to mess with us here in West Hartford, as Ramos learned. We’re not about to let some punk from Bristol get away with anything.

You know Ramos is a loser anyway. I mean, who steals a 23-year-old LeSabre? Jeez….

West Hartford is home base for campus security professionals

It turns out that the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators is based right here in West Hartford.
Here’s its statement in the wake of the Va. Tech massacre:

IACLEA President Healy’s Statement on Virginia Tech Shootings

Statement of IACLEA President Steven J. Healy

WEST HARTFORD, CT (April 16, 2007)– The shootings at Virginia Tech University today are a horrifying tragedy. On behalf of its 1,000 institutional members representing institutions of higher education in the U.S. and worldwide and its 1,700 professional members, IACLEA extends its deepest condolences to the families of the victims who lost their lives today. To the Virginia Tech University community, IACLEA wishes to offer its sympathy and support in this troubling time.

IACLEA is a professional association that advances the campus safety profession by providing educational resources, advocacy, and professional development programs and services.

Campus public safety departments are charged with the important responsibility to protect the lives of millions of students, faculty, staff, and visitors to our college and university campuses. Campus public safety leaders must constantly examine and strengthen the training they provide to their officers and staff to ensure that they are doing all they can to protect the precious lives entrusted to them. While tragic, this incident can provide an opportunity for campus public safety departments and campus administrators to examine their policies and procedures and, if necessary, to make changes to enhance the protection they provide against acts of violence on our campuses.

While incidents of shootings on college campuses are rare, each life lost is unacceptable and represents a promising future sadly shortened. IACLEA has initiated a number of programs and professional development workshops to assist campus public safety leaders in protecting campuses against acts of violence. Through funding from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, IACLEA offers a Threat and Risk Assessment tool, a three-day Critical Incident Command class that trains command-level staff in managing incidents involving terrorism and other catastrophic events on campus, and a one-day WMD Awareness class. With these grants, IACLEA has also developed model emergency operations plans and guides for communicating and collaborating with mutual aid partners. With the support from the Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, the National Advisory Board for Campus Public Safety is developing a model for a future National Center for Campus Public Safety. This center will serve as the focal point for policies, practices, and best practices. IACLEA also offers professional development programs on school violence prevention at its Annual Conference and other conferences.

While these training programs are important, campus public safety leaders must continue to work with our campus administrations and policy makers to ensure that adequate policies, training programs, and resources are in place to prevent violence on our campuses.

IACLEA stands ready to work with all campus public safety constituents to prevent the kind of senseless acts of violence we have witnessed today.

Media Contact:
Christopher G. Blake, Associate Director
860.586.7517, ext. 565 –info@iaclea.org

Va. Tech and school security

I have spent enough time at Virginia Tech in years past to feel particularly saddened by the nightmare that unfolded there yesterday. I’ve read about the dead, learned the disturbing details we are gradually finding out about the killer, and contemplated what anyone could, or should, have done to prevent it.

I’m afraid the answer is no different than it was after Columbine or any of the other shootings in recent years: not much. We can try harder to identify outcasts with delusions of murderous grandeur. We can work to keep guns out of the hands of potential madmen. We can implement emergency lockdowns, and use them when called for.

But in the end, there is nothing to be done except for each and every one of us to reach out to the forlorn — and to fight back in any way we can if danger looms. I’d rather die trying to stop a shooter than die cowering behind a desk. And I’m sure some of the dead in Blacksburg did just that.

Cars vandalized in Elmwood

Channel 3 reports today that crooks smashed windows and stole all sorts of stuff out of cars along an entire block in a residential section of Elmwood.

Resident Jan Sweeney told the tv station that “she never locks her car but will begin to do so now. Sweeney said that her ATM card was stolen out of her minivan that was parked in her driveway and money was stolen from her husband’s car.”

Now maybe I’m overly fretful, but I can’t imagine why anybody in West Hartford would leave a minivan unlocked. That’s just stupid on so many levels.

Blood and gore in West Hartford

Blood is sprayed on the apartment walls and flecked across the beige carpet. Bloody smears and handprints stain the hall and a child’s bedroom door. Wide swaths of gore smudge an ivory-colored couch. The phone on a nearby end table is spattered with blood, and there’s more around the corner in the master bedroom.

James Cheyne is on his hands and knees by the foot of the bed, focused on a scarlet drizzle on the light carpet. Encased in a light-blue hazmat suit, Cheyne sprays and scrubs the red circles with a sponge and rag, breaking up the tougher spots with the tip of a heavy screwdriver. The apartment is warm, and he’s sweating.”This is the stuff you don’t see on `CSI,'” he says, his voice muffled by a respirator mask and face shield.

Two women survived a knife attack at this West Hartford apartment about three weeks ago. A suspect was arrested.

That’s from a story in today’s Hartford Courant (it’s a half-interesting tale about someone who cleans up crime scenes).

What I found most interesting, though, is that we’re only hearing about this gory, sickening attack now. Where were the details when it happened? Why are we getting this story weeks later? Does somebody at the Courant think we care more about cleaning up apartments than we do about vicious criminal attacks occurring in our town?

Here’s how the story ends: 

Cheyne says he isn’t interested in how a crime or accident occurred, and, in fact, he tries not to absorb too many details of a victim’s life through photos and other personal items left at a scene. It’s better for his own mental health.

“My job,” he says, “is just to clean it to make it look like it didn’t happen.”

I wonder sometimes if the Courant itself doesn’t take that as its motto for West Hartford coverage: “Just clean it up and make it look like it didn’t happen.”