2 Murdered Near Strip Club

(Updated) Ensley Myrick was supposed to be out repairing gutters Wednesday morning. He never made it home the night before, though, never made it more than a few steps past the doorway to Hell.

Myrick, 27, of East Haven, and his friend Joey Reed, 25, of North Branford, were found shot in the head in a parking lot on East Street around 1:40 a.m. Wednesday, according to Capt. Peter Reichard (pictured), New Haven’s chief of detectives.

The lot is steps away from a martini bar named Hell and an adjoining strip club called the Catwalk. Myrick and his friend had been at the Catwalk shortly before they were shot to death, according to Lt. Luiz Casanova.

At an early afternoon press conference, Reichard said police conducted a daylight search of the area but found no weapons. Police have a ​“vague description” of a suspected gunman, he said. The two victims grew up together. Myrick lived in East Haven. Reed lived with his parents in North Branford.

The friends told their family Tuesday night that they were going out for a drink to watch the Celtics-Lakers basketball game. Reichard said detectives are reviewing tapes but have not determined whether the pair had patronized the club or the nearby bar.

The two were shot in the parking lot next to a vehicle. A vehicle was found at the scene belonging to one of the victims. Reichard said police do not know at this point what prompted the homicides.

“Shortly after bar closing time, people were just leaving the area. We’re not really sure what transpired in the lot,” Reichard said.

Reed was pronounced dead at the scene. Myrick was taken to Yale-New Haven Hospital, where he was also pronounced dead.

Casanova (pictured) and Sgt. Stephen Shea were inside the Catwalk mid-morning Wednesday reviewing videotapes of the scene outside the club. The videotapes revealed nothing of the scene because the club’s cameras cover East Street, but not the parking lot, according to Christine Sempey, who owns both Catwalk and Hell.

Sempey said the police showed her photos of the victims, and she didn’t recognize them. She said she doesn’t know if they’d been in the club before the shooting. Catwalk had closed early, shortly before the shooting took place.

“We were dead [quiet],” she said. ​“That’s why we closed early. I think it had to do with the rain and the wind, that bullshit.”

A man who said he was Myrick’s best friend visited the parking lot Wednesday morning, shaking his head in disbelief.

He said he and Myrick grew up together in North Branford. They used to work for a man fixing gutters. Then Myrick went on his own, and hired his buddy. They spent Tuesday doing jobs on the Shoreline, and were planning to head back out again Wednesday. Myrick’s family informed him of the death Wednesday morning, the friend said.

The friend, who asked not to be identified, said he had been at Catwalk six months ago and ended up in the midst of a brawl that spilled out into the parking lot. ​“We would have died if the police hadn’t come,” he said.

The friend identified the second murder victim as Myrick’s friend, Joey Reed.

Sgt. Shea, who arrived at the scene shortly after the murder, said that Reed died in the parking lot. Myrick was taken to Yale-New Haven Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

A videocamera in the parking lot (pictured) apparently was not working, according to Sempey.

Bar Strip

Several strip clubs and late-night bars dot the industrial strip along East Street. The strip is part of an industrial zone that the city created by the Mill River when the construction of I‑91 bisected the Wooster Square neighborhood a half-century ago.

“Historically all of these bars are somewhat of a challenge for the police department. But really, [Catwalk] has not been on the radar” as a trouble spot, Casanova said.

“She’s been a person that’s been easy to work with,” he said of bar owner Sempey. ​“She hires cops on a regular basis for extra duty.”

The Catwalk’s and Hell’s landlord, Marty Halpern, stressed that the murders took place outside the bars after they were closed. Halpern said the bars have been good tenants.

“The neighborhood has been having problems with after-hours parties,” Halpern said. ​“The police have been made aware of it.” The parties take place in lots along East Street, he said; they began when a former employee of the old Simkins recycling plant invited friends to party on the railroad tracks, then moved the gatherings into a lot there.

The parking lot where the murders took place is next to Halpern’s office, Halpern Associates, where a bullet hole from the incident was marked Wednesday morning (pictured).

Melissa Bailey helped report this story.