With Permission
John Deveau
When the case began, it was described as a rare “no body and no crime scene” murder in Branford.
When it ended, in state Superior Court today in New Haven, there was a body, of sorts, and a crime scene, of sorts.
However, the accused assailant, Thomas Malinka, did not plead to a murder count, which had been dropped in exchange for a plea agreement that produced body parts.
It was, as Superior Court Judge Patrick J. Clifford told the court Friday morning before imposing sentence, “an extremely unique agreement to say the least.” The judge observed that the state had painted a sadistic scenario, adding that “one could infer” that Malinka caused the victim’s death.
In the end, the agreement that played out in court was “a total compromise,” the judge said, because Malinka’s plea agreement led Branford police to uncover parts of the body of John Deveau, then 61 and ailing.
Deveau was Malinka’s landlord. Malinka and Deveau lived side by side, one at 33C Crouch Road, the other at 33D Crouch Road. They were also friends, according to police. Then in late May 2013, after filing a theft report with police against Malinka, Deveau went missing.
“Before the body was found this would have been a difficult case,” the judge said. David Strollo, supervisory assistant state’s attorney, told the judge, “we will never know the circumstances of John Deveau’s death.”
Malinka’s attorney, Public Defender Tejas Bhatt, insisted that Malinka did not cause Deveau’s death. But no one was saying who did. Bhatt repeated again and again that the one element that has guided and maintained the plea agreement was Malinka’s position that “he did not cause the death of Deveau.” And when the issue was raised in court, Malinka shook his head, “no.”
Bhatt said it would have been near to impossible for the state to prove the murder charge. And the state knew that. “That was the primary reason. They would have been unable to provide admissible evidence to a jury to find whether Malinka was guilty of a crime or not.” And Strollo said as much.
An Issue of Law
Strollo said in court that bringing this murder charge to trial would have been difficult if not impossible. While Strollo maintained Malinka was the killer, and Malinka’s attorney maintained he was not, in the end the state dropped the murder charge because of the legal circumstances of Deveau’s complaint at the time Malinka was arrested. At that time no body had been found.
The Branford police had conducted an exhaustive investigation into Malinka’s motives and activities, including the theft of $20,000 from Deveau through the fraudulent use of his ATM card and a DNA link of his blood to Malinka’s car. Deveau, very ill at the time and frequently hospitalized, reported the thefts to the Branford police on May 8, 2013. Deveau also told the police that he suspected Malinka. While both men were seen arguing by a neighbor in May 2013, a day or two before Deveau disappeared, in fact there was no pending criminal larceny case against Malinka at the time Deveau disappeared.
That larceny case was essential, because it went to the motive of murder, Strollo said.
Complex Legal Issues
“The facts of this case presented numerous complex legal issues,” Strollo told the court. To proceed without finding a body, the state needed John Deveau’s larceny complaint to have been filed. It was the “motive for the murder,” Strollo said. But, he told the court, “there was no pending case and the defendant had not yet been questioned regarding the larceny complaint at the time of the victim’s disappearance.”
At issue in a court of law, the prosecutor said, was whether ”Deveau’s hearsay complaint and other statements would be allowed at trial.” This would have been the the first time under Connecticut law that a trial judge would be faced with admitting hearsay statements without a live witness and without a formally filed prior complaint.
Throughout the United States, courts have both allowed and disallowed such testimony. Both sides had much to lose. “If the court decided in the state’s favor [statements admissible] then the defendant ran the risk of conviction for murder. But if the court decided in the defendant’s favor [statements inadmissible] that the state’s larceny case failed, an already difficult circumstantial murder case would become even more difficult to prosecute,” Strollo said.
And so the prosecutor took another route, one Deveau’s sister agreed with.
“A compromise plea agreement was reached whereby the defendant would provide the location of the victim’s identifiable remains in exchange for convictions for larceny and for tampering with physical evidence,” Strollo said.
The judge agreed to the terms of the agreement, imposing a sentence of 12 years in prison with three years’ probation. In court Friday, the judge granted Malinka two years off from the 12 years he has served in prison while awaiting adjudication of his case.
Malinka, 46, wearing an orange jump suit, walked into court using a cane and sat beside Bhatt and two other public defenders.
While Bhatt maintained Malinka was not involved in cause Deveau’s death, noting he was pleading to larceny but not to murder, he said he understood the deep concerns of Deveau’s sister, Patricia Lux who was lives out of state. She sent a letter on behalf of her family which was read aloud in court by Beata Bagi, the state victim services advocate.
Lux said she was the older sister and only sibling of John Deveau, who she said was “murdered and butchered by Thomas Malinka.”
“If I had my say, the defendant should spend the rest of his life in prison for the murder of my brother. There can be no argument that he is a menace to society. … He does not deserve to see freedom. My brother was only 61 years old. He was weak and ill and Malinka took advantage of him, stealing money and possessions from him before and after killing him.”
In the end, the judge stayed with the agreement worked out in the plea, a plea that sends Malinka to state prison for a decade for pleading to a larceny, a larceny that was never far from a murder. Judge Clifford observed that Malinka lived up to his agreement. He led the police to body parts, body parts that had “telltale signs of saw marks,” Strollo added.
The prosecutor added that “extensive and invasive searches at both locations” in the woods about a mile from both homes, locations provided “by the defendant did not yield any more remains.”
Judge Clifford asked Bhatt if his client wanted to speak.
“He prefers to let my comments stand,” Bhatt said.
The judge said he had an obligation to ask. “Is there anything you want to say?”
“No, your honor,” came the reply.
###
