They Followed The Video Crumbs

No single surveillance video led Detectives Mike DeFonzo and Jessica Stone to a serial bank robber. A series of video clips helped point the way.

The clips came from the sites — and then nearby locations — of three separate New Haven bank robberies in seven days.

The detectives picked up pretty quickly that one man was responsible for all three robberies. And that he wasn’t going to stop until they caught him.

They worked long hours trying to find him. And they succeeded. The pieces fell together in days, not weeks or months as in other cases.

Their investigation reflected how important ever-present surveillance video has become to providing clues to solve crimes. But it also reflected how that tool isn’t enough. You also need skilled detectives to piece the clues together.

And it doesn’t hurt when you have a bank robber who likes to commute to and from his jobs by taxi.

Brazen

Andre, the 40-year old man who eventually confessed to the robberies after DeFonzo and Stone arrested him, called a Metro Taxi cab the morning of Nov. 6 to take him from his Hamden home to the downtown New Haven Key Bank branch at Church and Elm streets.

Andre, who later told police that he struggles with a crack addiction, was living with his mom and siblings. He had most recently been released from jail in August after serving time for a robbery conviction; he then stayed in a halfway house until October.

According to his subsequent arrest warrant affidavit, Andre allegedly entered the Key Bank branch at 8:46 a.m. He didn’t make much effort to disguise himself. No mask. No weapon. Recognizable attire: a baseball-style cap reading ​“NETS,” gold-rimmed glasses, white sneakers, blue-and-white checkered sneakers. He handed the teller a neatly handwritten note demanding money. The teller complied. Then the thief ran out.

Patrol officers responded to the scene. Detective DeFonzo, who serves in the eight-member robbery and burglary unit, was at 1 Union Ave. doing paperwork. When he heard about the robbery, he immediately headed over to the bank because clues are often freshest right after a crime. Patrol officers filled him in on the details. He spoke with the teller, then reviewed the bank’s surveillance video. He noticed the robber’s clothes. He also noticed that the robber had run east on Elm Street after leaving the bank.

Back at police headquarters, DeFonzo put out the word to area police departments and drew up a wanted flyer for the media.

“My gut,” recalled DeFonzo, ​“was that he would do it again, if he was brazen enough to do it without a mask.”

Zooming In

The first big lead came the afternoon after the Key Bank robbery.

DeFonzo and Stone were on ​“crime suppression” duty. That meant they were driving around East Rock hoping to catch people breaking into cars.

DeFonzo brought up the Key Bank robbery; Stone had been off duty that day. DeFonzo mentioned that the suspect had fled east. Stone remembered a nearby business owner who had a surveillance camera from which she had obtained helpful footage in a previous investigation.

“Let’s go check it out,” DeFonzo said.

They did. There was indeed footage — of a Metro Taxi cab dropping off the suspect at Elm and Orange right before the robbery, then of the suspect running back into the cab afterward.

DeFonzo zoomed in for a better look at the driver, who, he now saw, had on an Adidas jacket.

Next: A call to Metro, where the manager reviewed logs and then, thanks to the Adidas detail, identified the driver on duty through his own company’s video. He called the driver, who remembered the Hamden address where he’d picked up the fare, though he didn’t remember the customer’s name.

The Metro manager reviewed previous logs, found that a cabbie had picked up the customer at the same address a week prior. In that case the customer gave the first name Andre.

DeFonzo and Stone were on the trail.

Dye Explosion

They were out driving again a few days later when a call came on the radio at 11:26 a.m. about another bank robbery, at the Webster Bank branch on Whalley Avenue in the heart of Westville Village. It was mentioned that the robber had ridden in a Metro cab.

“Could be the same guy,” the detectives conjectured as they drove over.

That conjecture grew stronger when they arrived and obtained more details. Same physical description. Same NETS cap. Another neatly handwritten note. ​“This is a robbery. Give me all your money and be quiet or I will hurt you really bad,” the note read.

The thief made off with $900 this time — along with a dye pack that exploded as soon as he returned to his cab. The thief’s pants ​“started to smoke” as he hopped back out and ran away with bills that hadn’t been marked, the cabbie later told cops.

Stone and DeFonzo, who had started their shift at 8 a.m., ended up working until 6 a.m. Sunday, preparing a search warrant application for Andre’s Hamden address, processing evidence, doing more research, arranging with colleagues to keep watch on the Hamden residence. This wasn’t a 9‑to‑5 assignment.

“Why wouldn’t he rob another bank?” Stone remembered figuring.

To which DeFonzo added, ​“It kind of makes you work a little faster.”

Caught

As expected, Andre did show up at another bank, another Key Bank branch, this time on Grand Avenue.

Police got a report of a robbery Monday at 9:17 a.m. DeFonzo was on duty at 1 Union; Stone, who wasn’t planning to start work until later that day, was looking for a yoga studio where she planned to try a new class.

DeFonzo headed over. A sergeant called Stone. She would have had her phone turned off if she had found the studio on time. But luckily she was late, got the call, and headed right over to the bank, too.

For the second time in three days, the cash with which Andre made off — $2,013 in this case — had a dye pack that exploded as he got to the cab.

Stone and DeFonzo went to the C‑Town supermarket, where security video, once again, showed a Metro cab transporting Andre to the scene.

They checked with Metro again and learned that Andre hadn’t really needed a cab. It had picked him up a few blocks away at the Ruoppolo Manor public-housing complex for seniors and the disabled and returned him there.

Now the whole robbery and burglary unit was on the case. Later that day, Detective Manuella Vensel spoke with a security guard at the complex, who told her what room Andre had visited. The cops went up; Andre wasn’t there.

DeFonzo and Stone learned on Tuesday that Andre had subsequently taken a cab to an Econolodge in West Haven. They went there, discovered he still had a room but wasn’t in it. They prepared a search warrant for the room.

Cops remained at the hotel. Eventually, Andre showed up. He tried to get in his room, couldn’t get the key to work, returned to the front lobby. Where officers moved in. Andre offered no resistance.

“Thank you,” Stone remembered Andre saying as they handcuffed him, ​“for saving my life.”

Next: Uber?

Next came a part that has always interested Stone: interviewing the accused. Known as a good listener in her 11 years on the force, Stone is interested in what motivates people to commit crimes. Bank robbery ​“is a bold thing for somebody to do,” she reflected, ​“especially if they’re not masked. They usually get caught. Typically they spill the beans.”

Andre did, she said: He spoke of his crack addiction. And he confessed to the three bank robberies.

“Yeah, that’s me,” she quoted him as saying when shown surveillance photos from the robberies.

(Andre remains behind bars on $330,000 bond, according to the state judicial database. He has yet to formally enter a plea for the felony robbery and felony and misdemeanor larceny charges.)

Department brass showered praise on DeFonzo and Stone for the investigation, which they considered one of the most interesting they’ve worked in their years on the force.

Assistant Chief Archie Generoso, who oversees the detective division, said the investigation married ​“good old-fashioned detective work” with new technology.

Generoso noted that back in the day detectives didn’t often have video clues to work with. Video has exploded in just the past ten years, he said.

“It hasn’t changed the way we do business. It has enhanced what we do. It’s another tool that we use,” Generoso said. He said DeFonzo and Stone used the technology. But they’re still doing what detectives have done for 100 years: run down leads and make cases. ​“What solves the case is the detectives using that video as a tool to put together a case that can stand up in court. It was good old-fashioned detective work that got them there.”

Both DeFonzo and Stone were drawn to that old-fashioned shoe-leather work. They’ve worked in the detective bureau for close to half their time on the force. DeFonzo, a 35-year-old West Haven native in his 10th year as a New Haven cop, called it ​“the best part of being a cop, putting the pieces of a case.” They spoke of enjoying the teamwork with their colleagues on investigations; in any interview, in between teasing each other about who drives more, they repeatedly made sure the other one got credit for key moments in the investigation.

Stone, who’s 36, spoke, too, of how she loves ​“running leads out.” And learning from the people she arrests. A former drill sergeant in Army Reserves and a National Guard engineer (she met her husband on duty in Iraq), Stone, with two NHPD colleagues, also started a local chapter of the Police Explorers program. She has kept it going for a decade, meeting weekly with teens growing up in tough circumstances, mentoring them, instilling discipline. (At least one graduate of the program, Leiyanie Lee Osorio, personally credits Stone — ​“She doesn’t take any shit!” — with helping her straighten out as a teen in the program and offering an example of a disciplined, successful woman; today Osorio runs the Fair Haven site of the LEAP program.) ​“I love helping kids. I think there are kids you can make a real difference in their lives.”

DeFonzo mused about how tech changes might impact their future investigations.

​“I think the next thing that’s going to happen,” he predicted, ​“is bank robbers are going to take Uber and Lyft” instead of Metro taxis.

And when driverless cars enter the picture? Detectives like DeFonzo and Stone will be ready to do the legwork to re-create the trail.

Read other installments in the Independent’s ​“Cop of the Week” series: 

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• Yessennia Agosto
• Craig Alston & Billy White Jr.
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• James Baker
• Lloyd Barrett
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* Elisa Tuozzoli
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