Thomas Breen photo
A view of Evergreen Cemetery, where Naysha Mendez was killed on May 2.
At the end of a police interview in which he confessed to stabbing to death 35-year-old New Havener Naysha Mendez in Evergreen Cemetery over a $700 debt, Edwin Arroyo-Roman “re-enacted the homicide” to show officers how he allegedly committed that murder.
So concludes an 11-page arrest warrant affidavit written by New Haven Police Det. Thomas Blaisdell on May 6. The Independent obtained a copy of the warrant after police announced the arrest of Arroyo-Roman, 55, on charges of murder and tampering with evidence for the May 2 homicide of Mendez.
Arroyo-Roman has not yet entered a plea to either of those charges. He is currently being held on a $3 million bond. His next court date is scheduled for May 21.
Blaisdell’s arrest warrant affidavit offers a detailed accounting of the grisly crime, documents the interviews and video surveillance footage and other police work that led to the speedy arrest, and indicates that Arroyo-Roman may suffer from mental illness. In separate interviews, Arroyo-Roman’s wife, his daughter, and Arroyo-Roman himself each told police that he suffers from “dementia.”
The affidavit also includes an interview with Arroyo-Roman in which he admits to having murdered Mendez because she owed him $700 and hadn’t paid. He then demonstrated for officers how he killed Mendez, and told police that he had also killed three other people in Puerto Rico.
According to the affidavit, city police responded to Evergreen Cemetery at 769 Ella T. Grasso Blvd. at around 7:50 p.m. on Friday, May 2, in response to a 911 call by a man who said he had found a woman — naked and with her “throat slashed” — in the Hill cemetery. Police would later identify the dead woman as Mendez.
The 911 caller told police he was at the cemetery for his nightly walk when he found Mendez’s body and called the police.
Mendez suffered from stab and cut wounds all across her body. The affidavit states that there was “a large pooling of blood on the ground by her head.” A paramedic pronounced her dead on scene, and, at 8 p.m., said that Mendez had been deceased for around two to four hours.
Det. Blaisdell interviewed Mendez’s fiancé, who told him that he hadn’t seen Mendez since around 4 p.m. that same day.
Police soon learned that Mendez had become friends with a different man, named Edwin. They obtained a photo of that man, a phone number, and a description of his car, a gray Nissan SUV. That led police to Arroyo-Roman, who lives in the Hill. Police consulted city camera footage to find video of a car that appeared to be Arroyo-Roman’s driving into the cemetery at around 5:26 p.m. and then exiting at around 5:46 p.m. on the day of the murder.
The day after Mendez’s murder, two police detectives found the suspect’s car — a gray 2012 Nissan Rogue — parked at Arroyo-Roman’s Hill address. They got a search warrant from a state judge, towed the car to the police garage on Sherman Parkway, and found inside the car “a long serrated knife and scissors.”
Also on May 3, the day after Mendez’s murder, Dets. Blaisdell and David DeRubeis interviewed Arroyo-Roman’s wife. She told police that Arroyo-Roman has dementia, that he takes medication, and that he frequently goes to Evergreen Cemetery “because he finds peace there.”
During his first interview with police, on May 3, Arroyo-Roman’s “statements were conflicting,” Blaisdell wrote.
At first, Arroyo-Roman said he didn’t drive through the cemetery the day of the murder. When police presented him with video surveillance footage to the contrary, he said he was driving through as a “short cut.” When police asked why his car was observed going in and out of the cemetery’s main entrance, he said, “I don’t know.” Arroyo-Roman also said he was alone at the cemetery. He then said he had spoken with Mendez by phone earlier in the day “regarding money.”
On May 6, Arroyo-Roman voluntarily came to the police department headquarters at 1 Union Ave. for a second interview.
At first, he told detectives he did not see Mendez the day of the murder. Later in the interview, he admitted to picking up Mendez on Hallock Avenue that day at around 4:02 p.m., a pickup that police had observed on video surveillance footage. He initially claimed Mendez exited his vehicle at a bodega on Hallock Avenue. He then admitted he didn’t drop her off on Hallock.
He also admitted to stomping on Mendez’s cellphone, as seen in another video obtained by police.
Towards the end of the interview, Officer Jonathan Faya-Sanchez, speaking in Spanish with Arroyo-Roman, told him that “this was his opportunity to tell detectives what happened, and be honest.”
Arroyo-Roman told detectives that Mendez owed him $700. He said he had been asking her for money, “but she was not repaying him.” He said he picked up Mendez on Friday, May 2, and “she asked for them to go to a peaceful place to hang out. Edwin said that he always finds the cemetery peaceful, so he brought her there.”
Arroyo-Roman said that Mendez started using heroin in the cemetery. He said he asked her for the $700, but Mendez said she didn’t have the money. He said she needed to pay him back somehow, and that she began to take off her clothes and hugged him. While the two embraced, Arroyo-Roman said he took out a knife in his waistband and said, “You gotta pay me, you gotta pay me.” He said he then stabbed Mendez multiple times, and admitted to killing her outside the vehicle so there would be no blood inside the vehicle. He told police he threw the knife out of the car window while driving away from the cemetery, stomped on Mendez’s phone, and cut up the clothing he was wearing when he killed Mendez. He said he didn’t tell anyone about the homicide, and that he slept well on Friday, May 2, after the homicide.
“At the end of the interview,” Blaisdell wrote, “Edwin stood up and re-enacted the homicide.” He stood up and faced Officer Faya-Sanchez, “swung his left arm around the back” of the officer “as if he was stabbing Mendez in the back.” He then motioned towards different parts of his body to indicate where he stabbed Mendez.
“Edwin said he has killed 3 people in Puerto Rico,” Blaisdell then wrote.
And so, Blaisdell concluded, “probable cause has been established to believe that Edwin-Arroyo Roman” committed the crimes of murder and tampering with evidence.
Police plan on holding a press conference Wednesday afternoon to provide more details about the arrest.