New Haven Independent

Sears’ home is an elegant seaside compound that sits on the point of Flying Point Road, off Long Island Sound. Her boat ramp is not visible from the street, tucked as it is between her house and a garage.

The men somehow drove down the narrow asphalt road and onto the gravel road that begins the Sears driveway. They may have believed that in turning right into the compound they were on another road. Instead they found themselves driving on a boat ramp that led directly into the Sound.

Sears awakened when she heard a noise. “‘My dog Toots was barking and then I went back to sleep. And then the Fire Department was here and the dog was barking again. And I got up,” she said in an interview later in the day.

Within minutes her house turned into a rescue station. “Obviously the men were very lost or discombobulated. They didn’t know where they were and I don’t think they knew what they were doing ” She added that she thought the men’s Jeep “plunged either forward or backward down the boat ramp.”

“It was pretty odd because minutes after they got here their car was submerged,” she added. “The boy got out of the car; he was very disassociated; he was confused. He ran up the street calling for someone to help him. A family at 31 Flying Point Road awakened and called the police for him. He appeared to be in shock.”

Police later identified the survivor as Daniel Fleischauer, 22, of Durham Road in North Guilford. He was the driver, police said. His half- brother was identified as Mark Albo, 34, of Seaview Terrace, a Guilford condo complex.

The police were dispatched to the area near the Sears residence at 1:45 a.m., knowing only that there was a man in the street in distress who did not know where he was or where in the water his car was. Deputy Police Chief Thomas Fowler recounted what happened next.

“Our first officer there couldn’t locate the young man but he went all the way down to the end of the road and just as he was about to turn around, he noticed headlights from a vehicle in the water. It caught his eye. It was submerged and it was high tide. The timing couldn’t have been worse.

“Our first officer —-this was Officer Joseph Peterson— “took his gun belt off and his bullet proof vest off and his boots off and jumped into the water to try to see if anyone was in the truck. A second officer, Stanley (Stosh) Konesky, III, arrived and he went into the water also. But within minutes they both found the water was freezing and they were having a hard time just breathing. They got out.”

The police officers called the Fire Department at 1:53 a .m. according Deputy Chief Shaun Heffernan. Three minutes later, Steve Palumbo, Jr., his brother Frank Palumbo and Michael McNamara, members of Stony Creek Fire Company #5 arrived at the Sears residence. They were wearing bright orange wet suits designed for cold water.

“‘They got here so fast. You’d think they had rocket ships,” Sears said.

In seconds they dove into the icy waters, broke the window on the passenger side of the jeep and pulled Albo out. The headlights were still on. They immediately began efforts to resuscitate him.

“The rescue guys were amazing, Sears said. They worked on the other brother for at least 15 minutes trying to bring him back. It was tragic. The only thing I could do is keep making them coffee. It was a hub of activity.

“There were perhaps 25 to 30 police, fire and rescue people here. They came from Branford and Guilford. They were extraordinary people. They were all the Knights of Stony Creek,” she said.

Albo and his brother were taken to Yale-New Haven Hospital. Albo was pronounced dead there. Fleischauer was treated for hypothermia and later released. Officer Peterson was transported to St. Raphael’s Hospital where he was treated for hypothermia and later released.

Deputy Chief Fowler said his officers conducted a preliminary interview with Fleischauer but he was “confused about what had happened.”

The next step will be to investigate whether alcohol played a role in the accident, especially given the hour of night and the circumstances leading up to the fatality. The police will also determine what happened before the accident; in other words they will backtrack their evening to create a time line.

There was one report that they were at the Chowder Pot near exit 56. This would put the brothers in the vicinity of Stony Creek. Had they turned left onto Route 146, they would have been on the right road back to Guilford where presumably Fleischauer would have dropped his brother off before driving another 9 miles to his own home.

Instead they took a series of wrong turns.

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