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They were watching an old movie, “The Prince and the Showgirl,” in their second-floor bedroom when a bullet tore through their window, zoomed past them and wound up in a bookcase in an outside hallway before landing on the rug. No one was injured, police said.
“We were more surprised than scared,” said the husband who is 82 and has lived with his wife, 81, on Prospect Hill Road for more than 50 years. The couple did not want their names disclosed.
The incident occurred at about 5:40 p.m. Saturday, said a jogger who heard the bullet sounds on the quiet streets that line the sea.
When the couple figured out what had happened to them they began to understand that the popping sounds they had heard outside for the prior 30 minutes were in fact gun shots and not the sound of fire crackers that typically anticipate the Fourth of July holiday in Branford.
“We heard 30 to 40 shots before the bullet went through our screen and our storm window,” the man told the Eagle.
Afterwards the man took a photo of the bullet going through the window and screen. If you look closely through the window you can see Bear Island, one of the famous Thimble Islands, and a house in the middle of it.
Police said the bullets came from a .22 long caliber rifle being fired by three people from the front porch of that Bear Island house. The man said such a gun has almost a one-mile range.
The powerful bullet entered the couple’s rear bedroom window which faces Long Island Sound. It is estimated that the bullets that went through the couple’s bedroom window and also hit a next-door neighbor’s home traveled far, at least one-third of a mile across the water.
The minute the man saw the bullet hole in the window he called police. The police asked if the shooter was in a boat. “I went downstairs and looked around. There were no boats in sight. I saw kids playing a couple of houses away. These kids could have been hit. Then I looked across at Bear Island. And I could see the shots being fired from there. I went back into the house and told the police that the bullets were coming from Bear Island,” he told the Eagle.
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It was at that point that the man and his wife realized that had she been seated at her dressing table, where she usually puts on her make-up, “she would have been in the line of fire,” he said.
The police picked up the tale from here.
Officer Dominic Eula verified the trajectory of the bullets and summoned officers on the department’s police boat to go to Bear Island. Officer Eula also noticed bullet markings on the outside wall of their neighbor’s home. He also pointed out that the kids were playing in a front yard.
Marine Officers Lt. Raymond Dunbar and Officer Michael Amarante arrived on Bear Island within minutes and found two men and a woman on the deck of a bungalow built in 1934. The house belongs to the family of Durbin Hunter, a long-time resident who died several years ago. Hunter family members now occupy the house.
Branford P.D.
Police arrested Durbin R. Hunter, 36.
Branford P.D.
They also arrested Michael Chioffe, 30.
And a 25-year-old woman. All three live in Stamford.
They had been sitting on the deck apparently taking turns at firing the .22 caliber rifle, police said. The officers said all three were firing the weapon at a target on the edge of the island and into the water towards the homes on shore. The police did not identify the immediate target the three were aiming at. The homes across the Sound may or may not have been their ultimate target. The police were not saying. Police believe alcohol may have been a factor in the events that unfolded in Stony Creek, but the charges do not reflect that.
All three were taken into custody. Police confiscated the rifle, along with other weapons they found. They also took the bullet found near the bookcase in the couple’s home, the husband said. A match-up was expected.
The trio was charged with four counts of reckless endangerment in the first degree, unlawful discharge of a firearm and criminal mischief. They are scheduled to appear in New Haven Superior Court on July 5 at 9 a.m.
The couple back on Prospect Hill Road seemed unfazed by the events of Saturday evening. “We’ll never forget that movie,” the man said. And no matter what happens, “we’re staying right here.”
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I'm wondering if the bullets weren't ricocheting off the water. They actually have shooting competitions where targets are set up across a body of water from the shooter, the object being to skim the bullet off the water and hit the target on the other side. If the people on Bear Island were indeed shooting at a target down-hill from their deck on the island, and were unaware of the fore-mentioned phenomenon, this would reflect slightly less reprehensible judgement and recklessness on their part.