Re: MaryAnn Measles Murder

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Man in Measles case wants less jail time
New Milford resident serving 36 years in prison
By Karen Ali Staff Writer
Article Last Updated: 03/28/2008 05:41:14 AM EDT

MIDDLETOWN -- A New Milford man who is serving a 36-year prison term for his role in a 1997 gang rape and murder of a 13-year-old New Milford girl has asked a panel of judges to reconsider his sentence.

Ronald Rajcok, who was 24 at the time of the killing, asked the Sentence Review Division to give him less time in prison.

Rajcok is one of eight people who was charged in the October 1997 death of Maryann Measles.

At the hearing Tuesday, the victim's mother, Cindi Measles, urged the judges to reject Rajcok's wishes and to instead raise the sentence to 42 years.

"He was the oldest of the group. He could have tried to stop it. He did nothing," Measles said after the hearing. "For me, this nightmare, this pain didn't happen 10 1/2 years ago, but it happened yesterday.

"There is nothing to make it easier. I cry about it every day," Cindi Measles said.

Rajcok kidnapped Maryann Measles from a New Milford grocery store where she was shopping with her mother, prosecutors said, before driving her to the river bank in New Milford where she was gang raped and strangled.

Prosecutors said the men killed her to silence her so she couldn't pursue statutory rape charges against them. The women charged in the case were friends or boyfriends of the men and were jealous of Maryann Measles for having sex with the men and angry she was going to press charges, prosecutors said.

Litchfield State's Attorney David Shepack argued against Rajcok's request Tuesday, asking the judges to raise the sentence to 42 years, the same number he sought at Rajcok's May 2005 sentencing.

MORE AT:
http://www.newstimes.com/ci_8726965
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"Sell Crazy Someplace Else. We're all stocked up here."

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After 5 Years, 7 Are Charged In Death of Girl Who Vanished

By THOMAS J. LUECK
Published: October 16, 2002

Nearly five years after a 13-year-old girl from New Milford, Conn., disappeared, the authorities yesterday announced the arrests of four men and three women in what they described as a horrific case of kidnapping, sexual assault and murder.

At a news conference in Litchfield, Conn., law enforcement officials said one other suspect was being sought in the case and was believed to be in Texas.

The arrests were the culmination of what the police said was an intricate, often frustrating investigation into the death of Maryann Measles, a middle school student who was last seen by her family in a New Milford shopping center parking lot on Oct. 19, 1997. Her body was found nine months later in a nearby lake.

Since then, as residents of New Milford, a picturesque town in Litchfield County, have puzzled over the case, the police have sorted through testimony from hundreds of witnesses, pursuing leads that the girl had been taken to a remote area, raped and killed by a group of young people.

''The information came not like a faucet but in dribs and drabs,'' Frank Maco, the state attorney for Litchfield County, said yesterday at the news conference in Litchfield.

He declined to describe the evidence, or to provide details on the sequence of events that led to Maryann's death.

The seven people arrested, all in their 20's, included two men charged with capital felony murder, punishable by death under Connecticut law.

''There are no words in the English language to express how happy my family and I feel,'' said Cindi Measles, the victim's mother, who attended yesterday's news conference.

''To think it has taken five years, but they didn't get away with it,'' she said. She told reporters, ''I know every one'' of those who were arrested.

Investigators had faced a deadline under Connecticut's five-year statute of limitations. Although the statute does not apply to murder prosecutions, it would have precluded other charges, including kidnapping and sexual assault, that were announced yesterday.

The two men facing capital murder charges were identified as Alan M. Walter, 24, of New Milford, and Deaneric Dupas, 27, of Waterbury. Both were being held on $2 million bonds, the police said.

Both investigators and family members have described Maryann as a popular but troubled girl who ran away from home for brief periods and had a reputation for associating with older boys.

Only days before her disappearance, Maryann accused Mr. Walter of statutory rape in a written statement to the police. Another man under arrest yesterday, Keith Foster, 26, of New Milford, had also been accused of statutory rape by the girl, in statements to the police.

The Hartford Courant reported last week that investigators believed Maryann had been taken to a remote spot along the Housatonic River by a group of 7 to 10 men and women, gang-raped by some of the men as the women watched, wrapped in a blanket and chains and dumped into the river.

According to an unnamed source quoted by the newspaper, the investigators believed the motive in the killing was twofold. For the men, it was to silence a girl who had threatened them with statutory rape charges. For the women, it was revenge for her having had sex with some of their boyfriends, the newspaper reported.
_________________
"Sell Crazy Someplace Else. We're all stocked up here."

Line from the movie As Good As It Gets

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After 8 Arrests, Working to Learn Details of a Girl's Killing

By PAUL ZIELBAUER
Published: October 17, 2002

Minutes before she disappeared five years ago, Maryann Measles, a scared young girl from the wrong part of this wealthy town, had a feeling that the people she sometimes called friends wanted to kill her.

Sitting in the family car in a shopping center parking lot, she told her mother, ''They're going to kill me, Ma, if they find me,'' Cindi Measles, Maryann's mother, recalled.

Maryann, just 13, had recently reported her sexual relationship with a 19-year-old New Milford man to the town police, who were investigating the matter as statutory rape, and she intended to tell them about another local man, 21, whom she had also had sex with, Ms. Measles said. The men, described today as hard-drinking thugs by those who know them, warned the girl to keep her mouth shut, her mother said.

When Cindi Measles returned to the car after a 10-minute run for groceries, she said, her daughter had vanished. Nine months later, in July 1998, a passer-by spotted Maryann's remains, bound in a blanket and wrapped in chains, floating on Lake Lillinonah, seven miles south of town.

Now, after five years of dead-end investigations and what they say were unconvincing alibis, state police detectives have arrested eight people -- including three women -- and charged them with kidnapping Maryann, then raping and killing her. The police would not comment today on news reports that she had been gang-raped and beaten, nor would they discuss a motive.

While the arrests Tuesday and today started a legal process that will most likely reveal the grisly details of how and why Maryann was murdered, for Cindi Measles and her family they are an end to five years of waiting.

No more rumors about who in the group of eight lured Maryann away, and who among them actually killed her. No more tearful confrontations between Ms. Measles and one of the suspects, whom she would sometimes glimpse in the parking lot of the local supermarket. No more wishing someone could solve the crime that, thanks to a fast-approaching statute of limitations, would have rendered some of the suspects unpunishable by Saturday.

''I think they should die for what they did,'' Cindi Measles told The Associated Press while waiting outside State Superior Court in Bantam this morning for seven of the accused to arrive for their arraignment. None of the defendants charged today entered a plea; that will come on Nov. 1 in Litchfield Superior Court.

Two of the five men, Alan M. Walter, 24, of New Milford, and Deaneric Dupas, 27, of Waterbury, Conn., are facing capital murder charges, punishable by death under state law. Mr. Dupas is also charged with raping Maryann. All of the others are charged with conspiracy to commit murder and kidnapping, witness tampering and varying assault charges.

The eighth suspect in the case, Jeffrey Boyette, 22, who lived in New Milford at the time of the killing, was arrested today by county sheriffs in Killeen, Tex., said Sgt. J. Paul Vance of the Connecticut State Police. He is to be extradited within a week or two, Sergeant Vance said.

Though investigators would not publicly say why they believed the eight friends, a hardscrabble bunch that grew up poor and isolated from New Milford's affluence, had killed Maryann, reports in local newspapers suggested at least one motive: jealousy.

Citing unnamed sources, for instance, The Hartford Courant reported today that investigators believed the three women charged had encouraged their boyfriends to strike back at Maryann as revenge for her sexual encounters with the men.

But in an interview at his home today, Bill Hallas, whose daughter, Dorothy Hallas, 22, was one of the women charged with orchestrating the killing, said she was innocent.

''I know cotton-pickin' well Dorothy didn't do this,'' said Mr. Hallas, sitting under a portrait of Jesus in his living room just up the road from the shopping center where Ms. Measles last saw her daughter.

Yes, he said, Dorothy and Maryann had traded punches once or twice over the years -- something to do with Maryann's trysts with Ronald Rajcok, 29, who is also charged in the case. But Dorothy, now four months pregnant, had left all that behind her, he said. ''They were all into drugs, all these kids,'' said Mr. Hallas, a driver for a trucking firm.

Maryann had a nose for risky behavior, family members said, skipping school, dating older men, sometimes even running away from home.

She had joined a rough crowd. At least two of the eight suspects accused in her death, including Mr. Walter, who served a year in jail on a 1998 burglary conviction, have criminal records.

Asked if Mr. Rajcok committed the crimes he is accused of, Scott B. Chamberlain, his lawyer, said, ''My client is not guilty of anything until he says he is or a judge or jury says he is.''

He said Mr. Rajcok, a technician at an oil-change service station in New Milford, had a girlfriend and a young daughter. Though his client had been arrested on a marijuana-related charge in the past, Mr. Chamberlain added, ''he's never been involved in any violent things.''

Norm Cummings, who knew Mr. Rajcok from Lore's Lanes, where the two men belonged to a Wednesday night bowling league, described him as ''a tough kid from a tough upbringing.'' ''He's a heavy smoker, a heavy drinker, and every other word'' is vulgar, Mr. Cummings said.

Maryann's killing is one of only two in town since 1990, state officials said. ''I haven't encountered a case with this nature of allegations in 31 years as a prosecutor,'' said the state's attorney for Litchfield County, Frank Maco. ''These days,'' he added, ''you don't preclude anything from happening anywhere.''
_________________
"Sell Crazy Someplace Else. We're all stocked up here."

Line from the movie As Good As It Gets

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Court Papers Depict Image Of Savagery In Girl's Death

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
Published: November 7, 2002

A Connecticut judge yesterday unsealed hundreds of pages of court documents that include detailed evidence and incriminating statements by the eight men and women charged last month in the 1997 rape and murder of a 13-year-old girl in New Milford.

The documents, filed by prosecutors, include transcripts of conversations in which some suspects confessed or implicated one another in aspects of the crime.

Taken together, the documents, including arrest affidavits for the defendants, provide a vivid image of the death of the girl, Maryann Measles, as a savage revenge killing in which the attackers kidnapped and sexually brutalized their victim and then drowned her in a lake.

Since the arrests on Oct. 15 and 16, the authorities have not discussed their case in detail, or offered any motive for the killing. But according to the documents, the defendants -- five men and three women -- killed Maryann primarily to prevent her from testifying that she had had sex with two of the men, both adults, who were likely to face statutory rape charges. Maryann had given a report to the police about one of the relationships just days before her disappearance.

Those two men, Alan M. Walter Jr., 24, of New Milford, and Deaneric Dupas, 27, of Waterbury, are charged with capital murder and could face the death penalty if convicted. The three women had sought revenge against Maryann because she had had sex with their boyfriends, according to the documents.

In a transcript of a Sept. 17 conversation with investigators, Mr. Walter admitted killing her after she was beaten and gang-raped. ''I, Alan M. Walter Jr., accidentally killed Maryann Measles on Sunday, Oct. 19, 1997,'' the statement began. ''A couple of days before Maryann was killed I found out from Dean Dupas that Maryann had filed rape charges against me.''

In the statement, Mr. Walter said he had hoped to scare Maryann by holding her head underwater. In the documents, other defendants gave statements placing themselves at the murder scene even as they disputed their roles in the crime.

The papers were unsealed by Judge Alexandra D. DiPentima of State Superior Court in Litchfield, over the objections of defense lawyers. In her ruling, Judge DiPentima agreed with defense lawyers that some of the information in the documents might not be admissible at trial. But she ruled that unsealing the documents would not prevent a fair trial.

Maryann, a troubled seventh grader, disappeared in October 1997. Her body was found in July 1998 floating in Lake Lillinonah. According to the court documents, she was kidnapped from a supermarket parking lot in New Milford while waiting for her mother to finish shopping. She was raped, beaten, bound in chains, wrapped in a blanket and then dumped into the lake.

Two defendants, Keith Foster, 26, and Ronald Rajcok, 29, both of New Milford, pleaded not guilty on Friday to conspiracy to commit murder and other charges. Another defendant, Dorothy Hallas, 22, of Naugatuck, did not enter a plea. Others are expected to enter pleas this month.

In another statement to the police detailed in the documents, Ms. Hallas recalled the victim's screams. ''Then all of a sudden,'' she said, ''I heard a loud bang like someone punched the side of the car, and Maryann's screaming came to a complete, dead stop.''
_________________
"Sell Crazy Someplace Else. We're all stocked up here."

Line from the movie As Good As It Gets

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Measles Suspect Denies Role
From Prison, Hallas Contradicts Earlier Statements About Whereabouts

NEW MILFORD - Dorothy Hallas - one of eight people accused of conspiring to murder Maryann Measles, and the person she reportedly feared the most - now says she wasn't present the night the 13-year-old was gang-raped, killed and dumped into the Housatonic River.

In a telephone interview Thursday night from jail, Hallas said she was at a haunted hayride with her then-boyfriend on Oct. 19, 1997, when Maryann was killed.

"I loved Maryann, and I am never ever going to plead guilty to loving somebody," Hallas said.

Hallas said she is innocent of any involvement in the teenager's horrific death.

Her recent claim, however, is in direct contrast to other witness accounts and her own statement to police, which place her at the scene. In a statement to investigators about four months ago, Hallas said she pushed Maryann and later saw the New Milford girl's bloody, violated body being tossed toward the river bank.

Hallas, 22, two other women and five men face a variety of charges in the death of the girl, whose body was found wrapped in a blanket and chains in Lake Lillinonah, which is part of the Housatonic, in July 1998. Two of the men could be executed if found guilty.

Hallas, of Waterbury, is charged with first-degree assault, conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to commit kidnapping, tampering with a witness and risk of injury to a minor. Her bail is set at $1 million.

Thursday, from a phone at the York Correctional Center in Niantic, Hallas said any account that places her at the scene of the killing is not true.

Asked how she could be sure where she was on Oct. 19 five years ago, she said she had been at the haunted hayride every day for a week around that time.

The telephone interview took place in the New Milford home of her father, William Hallas, who handed the receiver to a reporter after speaking with his daughter for several minutes.

William Hallas complained that prison authorities aren't taking adequate care of his daughter, who is several months into what he called a high-risk pregnancy.

"My daughter hasn't gotten one bit of care, not one aspirin," he said.

A state Department of Correction spokeswoman said Friday that Dorothy Hallas has been under medical care since her incarceration and has been seen by a nurse, who discussed with her several issues related to her pregnancy. A doctor will see Hallas Monday, department spokeswoman Christina Polce said.

William Hallas, a 57-year-old truck driver, said he has mortgaged his two properties on Riverview Court to hire an attorney for his daughter, but there's not enough money to put up 10 percent of her $1 million bond. He is hoping a judge will reduce the bond at a hearing next week so his daughter will be home when she delivers her baby.

"We can't get her out. Who can afford to throw away $100,000 to a bondsman?" he asked. "We have no intention of running anywhere. My daughter will go to court every doggone time."

Police say Maryann Measles ran afoul of Hallas, Alan (A.J.) Walter and others in a band of young men and their teenage girlfriends. The group hung around downtown New Milford and in isolated areas by the Housatonic River, drinking, doing drugs and casually swapping sex partners, police say.

The affidavits say Maryann had sex with all of the accused men in the summer of 1997, and was killed when they learned she had gone to local police and filed a sexual assault complaint against one of them and was in the midst of filing a complaint against another. At the same time, women in the group had grown jealous and angry and helped arrange the killing, according to at least some of the accounts.

William Hallas contends his daughter and codefendant Maggie Mae Bennett were falsely accused by some of the six other defendants.

"My daughter doesn't believe in murder. She was raised Christian. And Maggie would never do this. I think my daughter and Maggie are pawns," he said.

Dorothy Hallas called co-defendant Walter, 24, "a pathological liar" during the telephone interview.

MORE AT: ( 2 page article)
http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-hallas1109.artnov09,0,5490165.story?coll=hc-headlines-local
_________________
"Sell Crazy Someplace Else. We're all stocked up here."

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Defendants In Maryann Measles Murder Case Want Files Sealed
Judge Considers Defense Request

POSTED: 4:21 pm EST October 29, 2002
UPDATED: 6:06 pm EST October 29, 2002

LITCHFIELD, Conn. -- Lawyers for the two men charged with the 1997 murder of a 13-year-old New Milford girl are seeking to keep the case files sealed. Deanric DupasAlan Walter Jr.

Deaneric Dupas (pictured, left) and Alan Walter (pictured, right) were in Litchfield Superior Court Tuesday.

Their lawyers argued that releasing the arrest affidavits to the public would jeopardize the men's ability to get a fair trial in the murder of Maryanne Measles.

"Any errors should be made on the side of the defendant," public defender Michael Courtney argued.

Judge Alexandra Dipentima ordered a hearing on the issue next Tuesday. Files for all eight defendants in the case will remain sealed until then.

Prosecutors claim the group of friends kidnapped and killed Measles after the teenager accused two men in the group of statutory rape.

Dupas and Walter also were ordered to return to court in January for probable cause hearings. The hearings will determine whether the state has enough evidence to try them on the capital felony charges.

Both men could face the death penalty if convicted.

The girl's decomposed body was found wrapped in a blanket and chains at Lake Lillinonah in Bridgewater, Conn., on July 15, 1998, nine months after she disappeared. After a four-year investigation, prosecutors brought charges earlier this month.

Walter's hearing is scheduled for Jan. 8. Dupas' hearing was set for Jan. 15.

VIDEO AND PHOTOS AT:
http://www.nbc30.com/news/1746306/detail.html
_________________
"Sell Crazy Someplace Else. We're all stocked up here."

Line from the movie As Good As It Gets

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Here's a different one trying to skate.............

Maryann Measles' attacker seeks lesser prison sentence

Posted July 11, 2007
7:56 AM

(Litchfield-AP) _ One of the eight people convicted in the gang rape and killing of a New Milford girl is due in court today, seeking a lower prison sentence.

Thirty-one-year-old Deaneric Dupas was sentenced to 47 years in prison for his role in the kidnapping, raping and murdering of 13-year-old Maryann Measles in October of 1997.

In a plea bargain with the state, Dupas agreed to testify against his former friend, Keith Foster, when he went to trial for the girl's murder.

The testimony of Dupas and four of the others convicted in the case led to Foster's conviction and a 110-year prison sentence.

Prosecutors had agreed to allow Dupas to seek a lower sentence, but didn't agree to recommend a reduction.
_________________
"Sell Crazy Someplace Else. We're all stocked up here."

Line from the movie As Good As It Gets

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Guilty Plea in Girl's Abduction and Murder

By STACEY STOWE
Published: February 20, 2004

The crime was as ghastly as the most macabre fiction: on an October night in 1997, a 13-year-old New Milford, Conn., girl was abducted, gang-raped, and drowned.

After five years, five men and three women, all in their 20's, were arrested and charged with killing the girl, Maryann Measles, and dumping her body into the Housatonic River.

Yesterday, one of the men became the first to plead guilty in the case.

By pleading guilty to six counts including felony murder, the man, Alan Walter Jr., 25, will not face the death penalty. Prosecutors are expected to seek a life sentence for Mr. Walter, which is 60 years in Connecticut. He also pleaded guilty to kidnapping, conspiracy to commit both kidnapping and sexual assault, and tampering with a witness and evidence. He is scheduled to be sentenced on April 29.

Mr. Walter is one of the hardscrabble group of eight who grew up poor and isolated from New Milford's affluence. Law enforcement officials said Maryann, a troubled seventh grader, was killed both as an act of revenge for having sex with some of the women's boyfriends and to prevent her from testifying that she had had sex with two of the men, both adults who were likely to face statutory rape charges. Maryann told the police about one of the relationships.

One week later, on Oct. 19, 1997, she disappeared from the parking lot of a New Milford supermarket while her mother was shopping in the store. She was driven in a van to a remote area next to the Housatonic River. According to court documents, she was raped and beaten. Court records describe her screams.

Mr. Walter, who demonstrated to the police during the investigation how he had held Ms. Measles's head under water ''to scare her,'' confessed that after she drowned, he removed her from the water and had sex with her.

He and others covered her body with a blanket, wrapped it in chains and electrical tape and dumped it in the river. Her body was found downstream the following July in Lake Lillinonah, a section of the Housatonic.

In October 2002, the police charged eight people in connection with the crime. Deaneric Dupas, of Waterbury, is facing capital felony charges. Three others are scheduled to go to trial in the summer, said David Shepack, the state's attorney in Litchfield County.

Investigators said that in conversations, Mr. Walter initially told them he believed that he deserved a sentence of community service, or perhaps two months in prison. ''Today, some six and a half years after the murder of Maryann Measles, this life sentence for Alan Walter Jr. brings certainty, closure and finality of judgment to both the community and the victim's family,'' Mr. Shepack said in an interview.

Cindi Measles, Maryann's mother and the mother of three other daughters, said she once wanted the defendants sentenced to death. Today she believes Mr. Walter will suffer more if he lives in prison.

''I want him to be raped, beaten and bloody, and never feel safe,'' she said. ''Because no matter what he feels in there, it won't be one-tenth of what my daughter endured.''
_________________
"Sell Crazy Someplace Else. We're all stocked up here."

Line from the movie As Good As It Gets

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Apr 13 2006 8:11 AM

Maryann begged 'everybody to stop'
Witness recalls dread of confronting murder victim's mother

By Karen Ali THE NEWS-TIMES
WATERBURY – It was mid-October of 1997 when the eight friends decided to do harm to 13-year-old Maryann Measles, said one of the people who was in on the plan.

On Wednesday, Maggie Bennett testified she and the others plotted to beat up the New Milford girl so she would drop her claims of statutory rape against several of the males in the group.
"There was a plan to beat her up to make her not speak to police," said Bennett, 27, wearing a yellow prison jumpsuit, her hair pulled back into a ponytail.
But in addition to being beaten, Measles was raped repeatedly in Bennett's van on River Road in New Milford on Oct. 19, 1997, and then held under water until she died.
In 2002, the five young men and three women who hung out together – and for a short time befriended Measles – were arrested and charged with her killing. Six of them, including Bennett, have pleaded guilty.

Keith Foster is the first to go to trial. The second week of testimony in Waterbury Superior Court wraps up today.

On Wednesday, Bennett spoke about how the planned beating of Measles turned into something far worse.

Bennett said she had been dating A.J. Walter and was angry that Maryann Measles was sleeping with him. Measles also had sexual encounters with Foster, witnesses have said.

The group was upset that Maryann and her mother, Cindi Measles, went to New Milford police several times to make a statutory rape complaint against Foster and Walter.

Bennett said on Oct. 19 two of the males picked up Measles in the parking lot of a New Milford supermarket and drove her to a secluded spot on River Road.

There, one of the women, Dorothy Hallas, started hitting Measles, "calling her a liar, calling her a b––, saying the guys never raped her," Bennett said. Measles was "crying," and "begging everybody to stop," Bennett said.

Foster asked Bennett to open her van, and she originally said no. But Bennett said she relented when Foster began yelling. She testified that Jeffrey Boyette, Deaneric Dupas and Walter pushed Measles into the back of the van.

Although Bennett was standing outside, she said she could see Walter having sex with Measles. Boyette and Foster also took turns, Bennett said. Measles "was crying," Bennett said. "She was trying to break loose from when they were holding her."

Asked by prosecutor David Shepack if she was "on board in terms of a plan for the rape," Bennett said she was not.

Bennett also testified she wasn't aware that Measles was going to be killed. After the rape, Bennett said, Walter and Dupas grabbed her and dragged her down to the water.

"Foster (was) standing with me and the rest of them," Bennett said.
Prosecutors have been trying to determine if Foster took part in the drowning.

Bennett said Dupas and Walter forced the teen to her knees and held her head under water for five minutes.

"She's trying to struggle, but they're both a lot bigger than her," she said.
Bennett said Measles was coughing the first time the men yanked her head up.

"At one point, when Dean(eric) picked her up, she wasn't coughing anymore," Bennett said. "Keith (Foster) yelled down and asked if she was dead yet."

When they saw Measles floating, they started laughing, Bennett testified.
After Wednesday's testimony, lawyer Vicki Hutchinson said Bennett was "relieved that she finally came in and confronted Maryann's mother and told the truth about what happened.

"Maggie told me she was trying hard not to look at Cindi (Measles). She was very aware Cindi was very emotional," Hutchinson said.

Foster claims he was not at the murder scene. His lawyer asked Bennett about comments she made to her family members. She originally told them she, too, wasn't at the scene but was going to plead guilty and testify against the others to reduce her prison sentence.

"Do you remember telling them this was my chance to get less than 20 years?" defense lawyer Don O'Brien asked.

"Yes," Bennett replied.

Bennett said she lied to her family so they wouldn't think so poorly of her. As a result of her deal with prosecutors, she faces 15 to 20 years in prison. She'll be sentenced when all the other cases are completed.
_________________
"Sell Crazy Someplace Else. We're all stocked up here."

Line from the movie As Good As It Gets

[rumaj]

CSPAAA News

Connecticut State Police Academy Alumni Association News
Seven arrested in rape and murder of New Milford teen
October 16, 2002

LITCHFIELD, Conn. - An eighth person was being sought Wednesday in connection with the kidnapping, rape and murder of a 13-year-old New Milford girl five years ago.

Seven people were arrested Tuesday. Two men were charged with capital felony, which potentially carries the death penalty.


The arrests marked the first time in 40 years in Connecticut that more than one person could receive the death penalty for the same crime.

The eighth person was being sought in Texas, where he was expected to be arrested soon, Col. Timothy Barry, the state police commander, said.

All seven people were charged Tuesday with conspiracy to commit murder in the death of Maryann Measles, whose decomposed body was found wrapped in a blanket and chains by a boater on Lake Lillinonah in Bridgewater on July 15, 1998. She was last seen on Oct. 19, 1997, and her mother reported her missing two days later.

"I'm excited. There's no words in the English language that express the happiness my family and I feel," said Cindi Measles, the victim's mother. "It's taken five years, but they didn't get away with it. They thought they would."

Measles hugged her three daughters as state police held an evening news conference on the arrests Tuesday.

She said she knew all the suspects, and had to endure seeing them around town after her daughter disappeared.

The two men charged with capital felony were Deaneric Dupas, 27, of Waterbury and Alan Walter, 24, of New Milford. Dupas also was charged with first-degree sexual assault.

The five other people arrested were June Segar Bates, 22, of New Milford; Maggie Mae Bennett, 23, of New Milford; Dorothy Hallas, 22, of Naugatuck; Keith Foster, 26, of New Milford; and Ronald Rajcok, 29, of New Milford. All were charged with being accessories to first-degree assault and conspiracy to commit kidnapping.

The eighth person being sought in Texas was not identified.

Authorities set the defendants' bonds at between $1 million and $2 million. Arraignments were scheduled Wednesday at Bantam Superior Court.

The Hartford Courant, citing sources it did not identify, reported Wednesday that Walter strangled Maryann Measles while Dupas held her down.

Sources told the newspaper that a suspect alleged to be Rajcok picked up Measles at a supermarket parking lot while she sat in a car waiting for her mother to return from the store.

Rajcok then reportedly drove Measles to an isolated area in the north end of New Milford, where Bennett, Seger, Walter, Dupas, Foster and Hallas - who was Foster's girlfriend at that time - were waiting, sources told the newspaper.

The sources said Dupas held Measles down while others raped her in the back of a van and afterward, they said, Walter strangled the 13-year-old girl.

It is not clear where Measles was killed or whether her killers drove to another location before throwing her body in the water.

Scott Chamberlain, a Bethel attorney representing Rajcok, declined to comment on the charges.

"Everything starts with a not guilty plea," he said. "Obviously, things have been in the wind for some time."

The investigation was nearly at a dead end in July 2001 when state police Detectives David Edwards and James Kline took over the case, Barry said. New information emerged during new rounds of interviews and led to the arrests, he said.

Tuesday's arrests were the result of hundreds of interviews and thousands of man hours dating back to 1997, Barry said.

New Milford Police Chief Colin McCormack praised officers from his department, state police and the Litchfield County state's attorney's office.

"I'm extremely proud and really overcome with the effort that has been made by investigators," McCormack said. "As a team, we in law enforcement found and came up with a good conclusion and solid results with the arrests today."

Authorities released few details of the investigation and the girl's death. The arrest warrant affidavits were sealed from public view.

The Courant reported last week that investigators believe the men involved in the killing wanted to silence Measles because she was threatening them with charges of statutory rape. The women - who police believe instigated the plot - wanted revenge because Measles had sex with some of their boyfriends, the newspaper reported.

Measles had used the threat of statutory rape prosecution to pressure the men with whom she had sex into buying her liquor, cigarettes and drugs and giving her rides to a shopping mall, the Courant reported.

Maryann Measles had given police a statement about having sex with a 19-year-old and was expected to return and discuss her relationship with a 21-year-old man shortly before she disappeared, her mother said. Cindi Measles said the 19-year-old man was Walter and the 21-year-old man was Foster.

Cindi Measles said she last saw her daughter in the shopping center parking lot. As they sat in their car, Cindi Measles said she urged her daughter to go to police the next day and tell them about Foster. She said her daughter told her, "They are going to kill me, Ma, if they find me."

"She was terrified, but I didn't think she literally meant `kill' her," Cindi Measles said. "I thought she was scared that they'd beat her up."

Now, she said, her thoughts are often of how her daughter will never graduate from school, drive a car or have children.

"She'll never have anything like that because they saw fit to be judge, jury and executioner," Measles said.

Asked Tuesday how she has coped with the loss of her daughter, Cindi Measles said, "Zoloft," referring to the popular anti-depressant.

Maryann Measles' relatives said it was unnerving to see people they suspected in her death around town.

"I ran up to Keith Foster in the parking lot of the Kmart and yelled at him, 'Did you kill my daughter?"' Cindi Measles said. "All he did was put his head down near the steering wheel and say 'no' and 'why can't people just stop talking about that?"'

Cindi Measles also said she got a suspicious call on the day the chief medical examiner identified her daughter and ruled the death a homicide.

"The very first call I got was from Dean Dupas asking me if they knew how she died and whether they had any suspects or good leads and how he hoped they figured out who did it," Measles said.

Maryann was well-liked and outgoing at her middle school, but had a reputation for hanging out with older boys, smoking and getting into trouble at school, her mother said. She had also run away from home on several occasions.

Her mother said she never left for more than a day and always called home. The state Department of Children and Families had been working with the family and Maryann Measles had a pending appearance in juvenile court when she disappeared.
_________________
"Sell Crazy Someplace Else. We're all stocked up here."

Line from the movie As Good As It Gets

[rumaj]

Witness says Foster was among 'friends' raping teen (Connecticut)
April 6, 2006 | Brigitte Ruthman

Posted on 04/06/2006 12:40:04 PM PDT

WATERBURY -- A man already in prison for his admitted role in the death of Maryann Measles said she hardly resisted when the eight people she had once called friends joined in a frenzied attack to kick, beat and rape her along the banks of the Housatonic River in New Milford Oct. 19, 1997.

One of those people, Jeffrey Boyette testified, was Keith Foster.

"Everyone was yelling, loud and angry," said Boyette, on the stand in the second day of Foster's trial in Waterbury Superior Court. "I don't know how it could have been worse. We were her friends."

Foster, facing 10 charges including felony murder, is so far the only one of eight suspects to stand trial. Six others, including Boyette, pleaded guilty. A seventh awaits trial.

"I was holding her hands," said Boyette, who said he watched Deaneric Dupas and then Foster rape the 13-year-old girl.

"She looked up at me and said, 'Why don't you help me?'"

Boyette, who wore a green prison jumpsuit with shackles around his ankles but not his wrists, was sentenced in September 2004 to 25 years in jail for his part in the crimes related to Measles' death.

In a barely audible voice which carried the twang of his Texas roots, Boyette, formerly of New Milford, described in lurid detail his recollection of the horrific last hours of Maryann Measles' life.

Barely 17, Boyette had been released from jail on burglary charges three days before the night he met Measles at the local teen center in October 1997. He had spent those three days drinking and smoking pot, Boyette said. He and Measles talked, flirted and had oral sex that night in the back of an unlocked postal truck, he said. He gave her the hickey Measles' mother noticed when she next saw her daughter two days later, on Oct. 19, 1997.

That night, Measles' mother, Cindi, answered her daughter's call for help from the Town Green. She had filed statutory rape complaints against Foster and Alan "A.J." Walter and feared he and others of their group were coming to get her. Cindi Measles left her daughter waiting in her car in the Big Y parking lot while she ran in for bread and milk.

That's when Ronald Rajcok pulled up in his car, Boyette with him, Boyette said. Maryann Measles jumped in the back of the car and gave Boyette a hug because she was glad to see him, he said. Boyette said he helped her into the car after someone yelled that Foster and Dorothy Hallas were heading toward them in Foster's pickup truck.

The meeting was not chance, but a ploy, Boyette said. Maryann Measles quickly realized something was amiss, and Rajcok ignored her pleas of "take me back." Rajcok told her he was angry over rumors that Measles was pregnant with his child, Boyette said.

The two vehicles, Rajock's car and Foster's pick up, and a third driven by Maggie Bennett converged along River Road in New Milford. Everyone got out of their vehicles, and Hallas and Measles began arguing, Boyette said.

"She was in the middle, surrounded by everyone," Boyette said. "Everyone was yelling. People started to hit her. It was just coming from every direction.

"Eventually she fell down and she was kicked. She broke the circle, Dorothy brought her back by taking her hand. A.J. (Walter) said he was going to kill her. He said she was a bitch and lying.

"I heard a bang. It looked like he had thrown her into the side of the van. A.J. and Dean (Dupas) got into the van. She wasn't fighting back. She was broken. Her spirit was broken. A.J. told me to hold her hands. I got in to hold her hands."

Boyette said he saw Dupas rape her, followed by Foster in the cargo area, with the van's hatch open.

"I didn't want to be there," said Boyette, who then left with Rajcok, who said he had to report for work.

Later, they met up with Walter and Foster at a boat launch near the center of town. He asked them what they were doing with the bundle, which contained Measles' body wrapped in a blanket with duct tape and a chain.

"We're getting rid of a dog," Walter told Boyette, according to his testimony. They threw the bundle in the water.

Cindi Measles' mother filed a missing persons report Sept. 21, 1997. Her daughter's body was found floating in Lake Lillinonah July 15, 1998.
_________________
"Sell Crazy Someplace Else. We're all stocked up here."

Line from the movie As Good As It Gets

[rumaj]

UpdateDimyan, popular Danbury lawyer, is disbarred

Article Last Updated: 03/21/2008 06:24:49 AM EDT

DANBURY -- Joseph Dimyan, a high-profile criminal defense and personal injury lawyer for nearly 30 years and an attorney for one of the defendants in the Maryann Measles case, has been disbarred.

Dimyan represented Dorothy Hallas, one of eight people charged in the death of 13-year-old Maryann Measles, who was killed after a gang rape in New Milford in October 1997. Hallas accepted a plea bargain calling for 25 years in prison.

Initially, the former partner in the firm of Pinney Payne was only suspended. That was in November, when a judge ordered Dimyan to serve a five-year suspension, starting Feb. 29.

But after that order, an amended complaint against Dimyan was filed, and a New Haven judge ordered him disbarred, according to court documents.

Mark Dubois, chief disciplinary counsel for the state Judicial Department, said Dimyan will be allowed to reapply to practice law after four years if he repays money and follows certain conditions.

For all practical purposes, a suspension and disbarment are similar in that the attorney cannot practice law and must reapply to be a lawyer. However, disbarment carries a greater stigmat, lawyers say.

"In disbarment, you can apply immediately for reinstatement. In suspension, there is a limit set by the period of suspension. Here, she put a limit on the disbarment, so it is the best of both," Dubois said.

Dubois said the new complaint that led to the disbarment involved "a client whose wife had allegedly died as a result of malpractice."

"The case was dismissed. Dimyan had it on appeal and was trying to save it. But he did not tell the client and apparently led him to think it was still active," Dubois said.

When the client discovered this, he wrote a letter to the judge.

"When confronted with this, Dimyan acquiesced to letting the judge up the penalty," Dubois said.

According to the original complaint, Dimyan withheld a settlement of more than $250,000 from the heirs of a Danbury woman killed in a traffic accident, in addition to withholding $125,000 he owed to the lawyer who referred the case to him. He used the money for trips, wine and gifts, the complaint said.

Dimyan paid the other attorney eight months after the case was settled, but he only paid the heirs after his former partners discovered the discrepancy four years later.

Dimyan also admitted lying to another client about his mishandling of a personal injury lawsuit he filed on her behalf after a 1997 accident. He then juggled his books to pay her an $18,000 settlement; the money came from another client's account, the complaint said.

Dimyan reported the violations in October 2006, on the same day his former associates filed their complaint with the grievance committee.

In November his lawyers, Peter Hunt of Danbury and William Dow of New Haven, said their client was guilty only of sloppy bookkeeping.

"This is really a dispute between Joe and his former partners," Hunt said at the time.

JOSEPH DIMYAN'S HIGH-PROFILE CASES

Dimyan represented Dorothy Hallas, one of eight people charged in the death of 13-year-old Maryann Measles, who was killed after a gang rape in New Milford in October 1997. Hallas accepted a plea bargain calling for 25 years in prison.

Dimyan was also one of the lawyers representing victims in a deadly gas explosion in Danbury in May 1999. They sued Getty gasoline company, eventually reaching a settlement. Getty paid an undisclosed amount to end the case.

Dimyan was the defense lawyer for Thomas Prunty, a former U.S. Army Reserve intelligence officer from Danbury accused of sending child pornography over the Internet in 2000. He got a suspended jail term and probation in 2006.

Dimyan also represented a Newtown grandmother, Patricia Gougelmann, who was sentenced in 2005 to five months in prison for running three brothels, including one in Danbury.
_________________
"Sell Crazy Someplace Else. We're all stocked up here."

Line from the movie As Good As It Gets