Sims Metal Management in North Haven. Mara Lavitt/New Haven Register

Sims Metal Management in North Haven "is not your grandfather's scrapyard." The ferrous metal yard. Mara Lavitt/New Haven Register 4/18/12

By Michelle Tuccitto Sullo
Investigations Editor
On an afternoon in March, two New Haven Register reporters drove a Ford Freestyle SUV carrying a newspaper honor box into the lot of a Derby scrap metal business, M. Jacobs & Sons on Factory Street.
We wanted to see if the staff would ask for identification, or ask if we had permission to sell the large, metal, coin-operated Register honor box. The boxes are on streets and in plazas across the region and have been targeted by thieves and sold for scrap metal.

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By Jordan Fenster
Register Staff
Former Gov. John Rowland worked for 5th district congressional candidate Lisa Wilson-Foley's husband as recently as March, receiving $30,000 over the six-month term of his contract, though the campaign says Rowland’s scope of duties did not include any campaign-related work.
During the same time period, Rowland was doing consulting work for the Wilson-Foley campaign as an “unpaid volunteer.”

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By Jordan Fenster
Register Staff
A spokesman for Lisa Wilson-Foley said Wednesday that payments made to former Connecticut Gov. John Rowland by a business owned by her husband were coincidental and not related to Rowland’s “unpaid” work as a consultant and volunteer with her campaign.
Chris Healy told the Associated Press that the “personal business relationship” that Rowland had with Brian Foley and Apple Rehab had “absolutely nothing” to do with Wilson-Foley’s campaign for Connecticut’s 5th District Congress seat.

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Lisa Wilson-Foley, Connecticut 5th District Congress candidate.

By Jordan Fenster
Staff Reporter
Former Gov. John Rowland did have a “private business relationship” with Apple Rehab,  a company owned by Brian Foley, husband to Republican 5th District congressional candidate Lisa Wilson-Foley,  though campaign senior advisor Chris Healy said he could not elaborate further.

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Lisa Wilson-Foley, Connecticut 5th District Congress candidate.

By Jordan Fenster

Staff Reporter

Former Gov. John Rowland offered “campaign consulting services” to Republican congressional candidate Mark Greenberg prior to Greenberg’s 2010 run for congress, proposing that he be paid through the candidate’s nonprofit animal shelter, according to a campaign spokesman.

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Mark Greenberg, 5th District Congress candidate.

By Mary E. O’Leary
Topics Editor
HARTFORD — Now that Connecticut is on the verge of becoming the 17th state to reject the death penalty, the only question is what will happen to the 11 men currently on death row, in various stages of appeal.
The bill recently passed by the state Senate on a 20 to 16 vote applies the repeal prospectively, and the clear intent, as stated repeatedly in debate last week, is to continue to proceed with those 11 death sentences, but not for any individuals found guilty of similar crimes going forward.
Democratic supporters of repeal, including Senate Majority Leader Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, who has lobbied for repeal for decades, say there are examples of the courts upholding prospective changes that will allow the death penalty revisions to stand.
Republican opponents who favor continuing with the infrequently used punishment counter that an appeal of the changes is a certainty and that the court will not allow the state to execute the 11 based on constitutional grounds.


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Jan and Bill Smolinski stand in a wooded area behind the home at 69 Wigwam Drive in Shelton, where the homeowner remembers seeing a car and truck driving behind her home around August of 2004. Their son, Billy Smolinski Jr. disappeared from Waterbury in 2004, and his parents are pushing police to investigate the area for more answers. Peter Casolino/Register

By Michelle Tuccitto Sullo, Investigations Editor

and Andy Thibault, Contributing Editor

The family of missing man William “Billy” Smolinski is pushing for police to do a more thorough search of a large wooded area off Wigwam Drive in Shelton, where a resident believes she spotted Smolinski's truck being driven into the woods around the time of his 2004 disappearance.

“There are other places of interest, but this one is top on the list,” said Janice Smolinski of Cheshire, Billy’s mother.

Just this week, state police examined bones which had been found by volunteer searchers at the Wigwam site in February, but the Office of the Chief State Medical Examiner determined Tuesday they were animal bones.

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By Andy Thibault
Contributing Editor
and Michelle Tuccitto Sullo
Investigations Editor
SHELTON — On a summer evening about eight years ago, cardiac nurse Jean Petrucelli — still dressed in scrubs after work — relaxed as she grilled dinner off her back deck overlooking the woods.
The woods are a refuge for Petrucelli, a place where she gains peace just breathing air and listening to the singing birds. Occasionally the sounds of all-terrain vehicles wreck the calm throughout the natural setting of about 150 relatively unspoiled acres off Wigwam Drive.
A bizarre sight jarred her.

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