Torso Found; Roberson Had Been Squatting

The sister of a dismembered homeless man had mixed feelings upon learning Thursday that police have recovered a torso from a former Salvation Army building that had become home to squatters.

City cops found the body inside the back of 274 Crown St., the former Salvation Army second-hand store abandoned as that block of downtown undergoes gentrification.

City and state forensic investigators have spent Thursday continuing to look through that building as well a building behind it, at 301 George St, where the Salvation Army until June 2014 ran a facility for homeless people on George Street between High and College. Squatters had been living in both buildings, according to police.
By mid-Thursday afternoon police had no confirmation that the torso indeed belonged to Ray Roberson, whose severed arms and legs were found on July 15 near the railroad tracks along State Street. The state chief medical examiner’s officer will tackle the task of making that match, as it did with the discovered legs. Police had gone to the buildings because they had had a report that Roberson had been squatting there.

“We wanted that,” Sherell Nesmith, Roberson’s sister, said of the news about the torso in a telephone interview from Atlanta, where she’s on vacation.

“I’m sad, but at the same time I’m happy if it’s him,” she said. We don’t want this to have the legs and this torso can’t be found. I’m kind of happy about the news, but we still have to wait for confirmation.”

Nesmith said she learned from a friend that her brother, nicknamed ​“Boo-Boo,” had recently been squatting in an abandoned building. She said Roberson hadn’t identified the building to the friend. He told the friend that he was staying with others in ​“this place [that] had a walk-in freezer. Those were his last words to his friend: Whoever he was staying with was able to jimmy the electricity on. They had this nice freezer.”

Nesmith said her brother had become homeless ​“by choice.”

A 1979 graduate of Wilbur Cross, Roberson was a talented painter, she said. He did portraits for family members and friends. He painted houses to make money. He repainted Nesmith’s house last year, she said. ​“With a steady hand, he got in there and didn’t mess it up. He honed his craft, and he did it well.”

She described Roberson as ​“a street philosopher. He could debate on any subject at any level with anybody. He was good at it. As a family, we loved to debate issues. He kept it real, all the way 100.” He lived in Newhallville for the last 14 years until living on the streets, as well as crashing at people’s homes, over the past year, Nesmith said.

“He had an addiction to alcohol. With the liquid courage, he started treating people in a way that they were uncomfortable. Unable for him to get along, he went with people who did the same things, and there’d be no judgment. That’s why he was out in the community,” she said. But he continued to visit a brother and another sister — Roberson was one of six children — regularly, Nesmith said. She herself hadn’t seen Roberson for a few months.

On July 18, Nesmith and family members attended an annual reunion of tenants from the old, demolished Elm Haven public-housing high-rise apartments. The Robersons grew up there. Ray Roberson had attended the previous summer’s reunion. When he didn’t show up this year, people were asking ​“Where’s Boo-Boo?” Nesmith said.

Investigation Continues

“Yesterday [Wednesday], New Haven police were given information that the victim may have spent time at the now vacant Salvation Army building which is located at 301 George Street. This information, obtained by city detectives and patrol officers, prompted a search of the building and another building, 274 Crown St. that share the same parking lot. New Haven Police requested troopers and state police cadaver dogs to assist in the case. Their initial findings led Detectives to apply for a search warrant. The warrant was granted in the early morning hours,” Hartman reported in a release Thursday.

“As was the case with the previously found remains, an investigation by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office and the State Forensic Laboratory must be completed for us to connect this case to the Roberson case. This will take some time. We will not speculate on the outcome,” the release concludes.

As of 12:40 p.m. Thursday, the search had been extended to the second floor of the Salvation Army’s 301 George St. property. As of 12:51 p.m., investigators had also begun to search the basement of that property. 

Police taped off the property where the Salvation Army until June 2014 ran a facility for homeless people on George Street between High and College. The city police Bureau of Identification was on site with state investigators as they continued a resumed search for the rest of the body of Ray Roberson, whose severed arms and legs were found on July 15 near the railroad tracks along State Street.

The building formerly housed an adult rehabilitation center for men struggling with substance abuse problems. The crime scene was the talk of passersby on George Street for much of the day Thursday.

Heather Smith and Rachel McKoy both work at the 300 George St. biotech center across the street. They said late Thursday afternoon that when the police opened the windows of the buildings they were searching, the smell was rancid.

“A pack of chicken once fell out of a bag in my car and left this smell in my car,” Smith said. ​“I couldn’t figure out what the smell was, and I realized it was rotted chicken. The smell when they opened the window was worse than that.”

“It smelled like rotted meat,” McKoy said. ​“I had never smelled anything like that before in my life.”

Both women say that they like to walk around downtown to go get lunch or just to exercise, but they said that they don’t feel as safe as they once did.

“It makes you nervous,” McKoy said.

“I hope they find the rest of this poor man so he can rest in peace,” Smith said.

Edgewood Alder Evette Hamilton also works at 300 George. Like many of her colleagues in the building, she watched and inquired about the status of Thursday. She called the mystery surrounding Roberson’s death and the continued finding of body parts concerning.

“New Haven is a great place,” she said. ​“But this is a problem. We have to find out what happened to Mr. Roberson, and who’s done this. People are starting to be afraid.”

She applauded the work of the police department and said she trusts them to keep looking until they get to the bottom of the crime.

Family Knew Tragedy

Police said Roberson was related to 2nd grader Quayshawn Roberson, Quayshawn’s mother, Wanda Roberson, and another family member who perished in a March 9, 2011, arson at 48 – 50 Wolcott St., a fire set as part of a drug dispute.

One childhood friend, Montie Harrell (at right in photo), who also grew up in the Elm High high-rises, said he last saw Roberson three weeks ago. ​“We were in Goffe Street Park, me, Ray, his brother Michael, sitting around, laughing joking.” He hadn’t seen Ray since then. He added that he didn’t know that Ray was homeless.

Rhonda Ford (at left in photo), who is married to Ray’s cousin, said Ray sometimes slept at her and her husband’s home. Other times they would drop him off at the Green. They knew he slept in an underpass nearby, but he preferred not to be dropped there.

She, too, said she last saw Roberson three or four weeks ago. ​“My husband dropped him off three, four weeks ago and gave him $5.” No word since.

She said Roberson had a gig washing windows at a Blake Street gas station/convenience store. Her husband, who has a side painting business, also gave Roberson work sometimes, she said.

Roberson had been expected in court on June 17, but didn’t show up, according to Hartman. Roberson has been in and out of court and jail at least six times since 2006 for a disorderly conduct, breach of peace, and violation of protective orders, according to the state judicial database.

Friends of Roberson from the homeless community described him as warm and friendly.

“He was very outgoing, a real good person. He never bothered anybody. Unfortunately, he was on the street; it happens to a lot of us,” said Melanie Stearne.

Evelyn Abele said she often spoke with Roberson at a bus stop downtown. ​“He was just trying to clean himself up,” said Abele, who described herself as a recovering addict. (She said she has been 18 months clean of narcotics, four months from alcohol, and has reunited with her daughter.) ​“He always looked at the good part of things. He told me he had family; he didn’t talk to them at the time.”