FBI Joins Hunt for University of Connecticut Senior Suspected in 2 Murders

FBI Joins Hunt for University of Connecticut Senior Suspected in 2 Murders
Murder suspect Peter Manfredonia in a file photo. (Connecticut State Police)
Tom Ozimek
5/25/2020
Updated:
5/25/2020

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said it has joined the manhunt for a 23-year-old University of Connecticut senior suspected in two slayings, while state police took to Twitter to dispel the rumor that he had been captured.

In a tweet, the agency wrote, “The FBI & our law enforcement partners are working to locate Peter Manfredonia, wanted by @CT_STATE_POLICE, whose last known location was in #EastStroudsburg, Monroe County. Manfredonia is considered armed & dangerous.”

Separately, the Connecticut State Police (CSP) said that Manfredonia was not caught in New Jersey, as some media had apparently misreported, but that the manhunt continued, involving state police and its law enforcement partners.

“Please call 911, do NOT approach, he is ARMED AND DANGEROUS,” CSP said in the tweet.

Manfredonia is a suspect in a deadly assault in Willington on Friday and a homicide in Derby, Connecticut, on Sunday morning. Authorities believe him to be armed with several weapons stolen during a home invasion.

Police said that Manfredonia left Derby in a vehicle that was later recovered in New Jersey on the Pennsylvania border. He was last seen in East Stroudsburg, wearing a gray shirt and gray pants.

Pennsylvania State Police released a picture of Manfredonia walking on train tracks in the area on Sunday.

Manfredonia is a suspect in the slaying of 62-year-old Ted DeMers, whose wife told the Hartford Courant that her husband and another man who suffered an assault were attacked after they found Manfredonia walking along a road and offered him a ride back to his motorcycle.

“It could have been anybody who offered him a ride,” she said. “It could have been any of my neighbors’ husbands. It just happened to be mine.”

The Newtown Police Department, in a post on social media, warned residents to be on the alert.

“The suspect has very strong ties to Newtown and with the recent sightings of Peter in Derby in the Route 34 area, we want our residents and those around to be aware of this very dangerous individual,” the police said.

Manfredonia has been described as a 6'3” white male, with disheveled, black hair, brown eyes, and weighing around 240 pounds.