A 48-year-old Manchester man has been charged with the murder of his mother and her two tenants in a grisly slaying in East Hartford on Thanksgiving Day in 2010.
Brett Bednarz was called a person of interest after the bodies of Beverly Therrien, 72, Pamela Johns, 60, and Michael Ramsey, 53, were all found dead inside Therrien’s home on Naomi Drive.
Though an arrest has been made, family and friends of the victims said they will not stop fighting for justice until Bednarz is convicted.
"When you lose a loved one, you want justice right away. It's a hard pill to swallow that it doesn't work that way always," said Michael Tillotson, the son of victim Pamela Johns."We're not done fighting because he still needs to be convicted."
Police said the murder scene was bloody and gruesome. Evidence indicated a heightened degree of violence and investigators said they believed this crime was targeted and personal.
The door of the house was unlocked when police arrived and all three victims were found in different areas of the house. They died of blunt force trauma to the head, according to the medical examiner.
The investigation was impeded when Therrien's family members refused to cooperate, according to police.
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In December 2010, Bednarz was named a person of interest in the case.
At 10 a.m. on Monday, he was arrested and has been charged with capital felony murder, three counts of murder, burglary in the first degree, home invasion and criminal violation of a protective order.
The court-set bond is $3 million and Bednarz has a scheduled court date on Tuesday Oct. 16, in Manchester Superior Court.
Tillotson had been working closely with police and media outlets in the two years since the crime and hoped of an arrest being made.
"My mother would do that for me. She would fight just as hard, just like she did my whole life. I would not want to let her down," said Tillotson.
Police said no details of the case are being released at this time, including what evidence has been collected.
In October 2010, Brett pleaded guilty to breach of peace, according to the Hartford Courant, and the warrant stated that Therrien told police she was afraid of her son. Reluctantly, she said he had placed a broomstick across her abdomen and pushed down on it with force, the Courant reported. She would not give police a written statement.
She was granted a 30-year protective order.
After the murders, the State Victim Advocate office announced an investigation into the circumstances that led to the triple homicide.
"A cursory review of judicial records, documents and other information establish that the East Hartford Police Department had numerous interactions with Beverly Therrien, one of the three victims, and that they were advised on several occasions of Ms. Therrien's concern for her safety," State Victim Advocate Attorney Michelle Cruz stated in a release.
“Over the next few months, up until the sentence, which was in October, 27, 2010, there seems to be a whole lot of contact with the police and we’re looking at that period in particular to see what the police response was,” Cruz said in a sit-down interview with NBC Connecticut.
In January 2011, Bednarz was sentenced to six months in prison on drug charges.
