Jury Convicts Gunman Of Felony Murder In Gowdy Case

By Andrew Gorosko

DANBURY — A 12-member jury in Danbury Superior Court this week convicted the gunman in the July 1999 Sandy Hook shooting death of 15-year-old Jason Gowdy, finding the shooter guilty of felony murder and attempted first-degree robbery.

On Tuesday, the jurors additionally found gunman Ruperto Lugo, 20, of Stratford guilty of carrying a pistol without a permit and possession of a weapon in a motor vehicle. The jurors acquitted Lugo of conspiracy to commit first-degree robbery.

The eight-woman, four-man jury came to different conclusions about the other defendant in the case, Alejandro Melendez, 21, of Bridgeport.

Jurors acquitted Melendez of felony murder, attempted first-degree robbery, and conspiracy to commit first-degree robbery. Melendez, however, was convicted of carrying a pistol without a permit and possession of a weapon in a motor vehicle.

The state had charged Melendez as an accessory in the case for having supplied Lugo with the .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol which Lugo used to kill Gowdy at about 8 pm Saturday, July 10, 1999 on the corner of Riverside Road and Cherry Street in Sandy Hook.

In a felony murder, a person commits a robbery or other felony against a person, and in the course of the crime, he causes the death of that person.

In reaching the verdicts, the jurors apparently decided that although Melendez had provided Lugo with the gun that Lugo had used to shoot Gowdy in the face twice at close range, Melendez did not plan to take part in the robbery that led to Gowdy’s murder.

Lugo faces up to 90 years in prison on the four convictions. Melendez faces up to 10 years in prison.

Lugo was being held Wednesday at Garner Correctional Institution in Newtown, where he is serving a three-year prison term for his conviction in a July 1999 assault on a corrections officer.

Melendez was being held on a $1 million bond at Bridgeport Correctional Center.

Judge Gary White scheduled a May 29 court hearing on the results of pre-sentencing investigations on the two defendants. In those reports, a judge is given sentencing recommendations based on the circumstances of the case and the convicts’ backgrounds. Judge White is known for handing down stiff sentences in convictions.

Verdicts

Just before noon Tuesday, people waiting in the third-floor lobby of the Danbury courthouse were called into Courtroom 6, having learned that the jury had reached verdicts in the Gowdy case.

The courtroom quickly filled. Ten judicial marshals and state Department of Correction security officers stood in the courtroom to maintain order.

Gowdy’s family members and friends sat on the hardwood benches behind Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Devin Stilson, who prosecuted the case.

The family and friends of Lugo and Melendez sat in the benches behind Lugo, and his public defender, Paul Eschuk, and also behind Melendez, and his private attorney, Gary Mastronardi.

An air of anticipation pervaded the courtroom. Sighs and sobs could be heard among the roughly 35 people who had gathered to hear the verdicts. The jury had deliberated for about eight hours over a period of four days in reaching its verdicts.

As the foreman of the jury announced the guilty verdicts against Lugo for felony murder and attempted first-degree robbery, Lugo broke into sobs, his shoulders shaking. Lugo later laid his head on the defense table, sobbing, with Eschuk placing his arm over Lugo’s shoulders to console him.

Millie Gowdy, the mother of Jason Gowdy, wiped tears from her eyes. She had left the courtroom several times during the trial after hearing graphic testimony about her son’s death.

David Gowdy, the father of Jason Gowdy, leaned forward in a first-row seat with his palms pressed together in front of his lips, as if in prayer, as the jury disclosed its verdicts.

Following the jury foreman’s announcement of Lugo’s convictions on felony murder and attempted first-degree robbery, Eschuk had the court clerk individually poll the jurors to confirm that they had found sufficient evidence to convict Lugo of the two felonies.

It was a different story with Melendez, who appeared pleased that the jurors had acquitted him of the three most serious charges against him.

“I’ll order the verdicts accepted and recorded,” Judge White said. “I want to thank you very much for the hard work and effort you put into this case,” the judge told the jurors, adding that it was not an easy case to consider. Jury selection in the case began March 27.

Following the disclosure of the verdicts, as the courtroom cleared, Stilson, the prosecutor, had quiet conversations on the results of the case with Millie Gowdy and David Gowdy, who are divorced.

Jason Gowdy had lived with his father, with his father’s new wife, and with his two stepsisters on Pine Street in Sandy Hook. Gowdy was a student at Henry Abbott Regional Technical School in Danbury.

As people left the courthouse lobby, Mastronardi, who represents Melendez, said, “There’s total elation on the part of the Melendez family and myself. The jury reached a fair and reasonable result. What the jury did was [render] an absolutely fair result as to my client.”

Of the trial’s result, Stilson said, “I think the interests of justice were served.” Stilson thanked jury members for their efforts in reaching verdicts. Stilson commended Newtown police and state police for making the two arrests in the case soon after the shooting.

Acting Newtown Police Chief Michael Kehoe, who supervised the police investigation of the shooting, said Tuesday, “I’m pleased with the verdicts. The jury has spoken. I can’t second-guess what the jury felt.”

The prosecution put much time and effort into the case, which led to the convictions of two people, he said. “Our sympathies go to the victim’s family,” Acting Chief Kehoe said.

Testimony

According to testimony at the murder trial, Mary Pires, who was 15 at the time of the shooting, had urged Lugo, Melendez, Barbara Carleton, and Alexis Barnett to travel from Bridgeport to Sandy Hook with her on July 10, 1999, in order to trick people out of marijuana.

When the group of five, traveling in a black 1989 Chevrolet Beretta coupe, approached Gowdy and his friends, Brandon Jossick and Matt Haight, on Riverside Road about 8 pm, Pires, who knew the boys, urged the people in the Chevrolet to pull the car over to seek drugs from the three youths.

A key aspect of the jury deliberations apparently was determining whether, in the course of a confrontation, Lugo was seeking “change” from an alleged marijuana transaction, as was claimed by Lugo, or whether Lugo was seeking to steal a gold chain which Gowdy was wearing around his neck, as was claimed by other witnesses.

Although the jury decided that Lugo was seeking to steal the gold chain, it apparently did not believe that Melendez had conspired with Lugo to do so. In such cases, either both people are guilty of conspiracy, or no one is guilty of the crime, due to the nature of conspiracy.

In testimony during the trial, Lugo acknowledged that he had shot Gowdy, but said that he did not shoot him intentionally.

After Lugo pulled the pistol on Gowdy, a scuffle followed in which Gowdy sought to disarm Lugo, but the gun discharged, sending two bullets from the pistol Lugo was holding into Gowdy’s head, killing him.

Police arrested Lugo and Melendez three days after the shooting. Both men were 19 at the time. At the trial, the state dropped charges of committing a felony with a firearm against the two men. Before the trial, the state had offered plea bargains to both defendants, which they did not accept.

A Juror Comments

A woman who served on the jury told The Bee Wednesday that toward the end of deliberations, two of the 12 jurors were hesitant to convict Lugo on the felony murder charge. “One of them kept making the point that he [Lugo] didn’t intend to kill Jason Gowdy,” said the juror, who asked not to be identified. She said the other jurors finally prevailed, arguing that the felony murder charge didn’t depend on intent, but on the fact that Lugo had caused Jason Gowdy’s death in the attempt to rob him.

They also had to convince the hold-outs that Lugo was actually trying to rob Gowdy, the juror said. “It was much more likely that Lugo had said ‘Run your chain’ rather than ‘Run my change’ or ‘Give me my change.’ This was a very key point, because if Lugo had simply asked for change, even at gunpoint, he would have been trying to recover his own property, not trying to rob Gowdy. This was pretty much the crux of the matter.”

The juror also noted there was not unanimous consensus on the complete innocence of Melendez on the first-degree attempted robbery and felony murder charge, though in the end the jurors decided that the evidence that may have proven his guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt,” presented in the testimony of Barbara Carleton and Alexis Barnett, was not credible evidence. Carleton was Lugo’s girlfriend at the time of the Gowdy murder and has unrelated criminal charges pending against her.

The juror also said that she and her fellow jurors were puzzled by the lack of testimony of one person who played an important role in the events leading up to the shooting on Riverside Road. “There was one question we all had,” she said. “Where’s Mary?” She was referring to Mary Pires, who was instrumental in directing Lugo and Melendez to Newtown that day, and who was in the car at the time of the shooting. The juror said that it seemed odd that someone who played such a key role in how the events of that fateful day played out was not called on to testify.

Father

Following the verdicts, David Gowdy, 40, expressed his feelings about the case.

“The dead can’t defend themselves,” he said.

Mr Gowdy rejected claims that were made by Lugo in court testimony that Lugo was in the process of buying marijuana from his son when the shooting occurred. Gowdy said that his son was not a drug dealer.

“I would like my son’s name to be cleared,” he said.

Of Melendez having been acquitted on the most serious charges, Gowdy said, “I was upset. I thought it was wrong.”

Melendez had handled the firearm “just seconds” before it had been used to kill his son, Gowdy asserted.

Gowdy charged there was a conspiracy between Lugo and Melendez to commit robbery. “I think they talked about it. I really do,” he said.

Of Jason’s mother, Millie Gowdy, Mr Gowdy said, “It’s hard for her. That was her only child.”

Although the couple is divorced, they have stayed close by virtue of being Jason’s parents, he said.

“My boy was my whole life,” Gowdy said, adding that his life will never be the same after his son’s death.

“I just miss the contact. We all do… He was a carbon copy of me. I didn’t realize it until afterwards, until people starting telling me,” he said.

While growing up, Jason was taught the golden rule, Gowdy said. “He was a good kid. That’s what makes this so much harder. He had a future.”