pool photo courtesy ct post
Public Defender Jonathan Gable and Giuseppe Briguglio in Derby Superior Court Jan. 12, 2018.
A 19-year-old Texas man wanted for the New Year’s Day killing of a romantic rival agreed to waive extradition back to the Lone Star State.
Giuseppe Briguglio was arrested by a team of detectives from Ansonia and Shelton late Thursday after police learned he was hiding out in the basement of a home on Ansonia’s Beverly Drive.
Briguglio was staying at the home with his girlfriend, 17-year-old Jessica Musante, a Shelton native who is friends with a resident of the Beverly Drive home, police said.
Connecticut police did not release Musante’s name, because suspects of crimes under 18 are in most cases referred to the juvenile justice system, the proceedings of which are secret.
But she was identified in court documents and a wanted bulletin published by Texas police.
Ansonia Police Lt. Patrick Lynch said the bulletin from Texas said the couple could be hiding out in Connecticut.
Detectives from Shelton familiar with Musante were working with Texas police and learned about the Beverly Drive address, Lynch said.
Once a judge in Texas signed an arrest warrant for Briguglio, Shelton and Ansonia police surrounded the house just before midnight and ordered everyone inside to come out.
Briguglio and Musante, a former Shelton High School student who recently moved to Texas, surrendered and were charged with being fugitives from justice.
The family who lives at the Ansonia home were not charged.
“There was no indication they were harboring them,” Lynch said. “They were very cooperative when we went to the house and we got everybody out of the house.”
Briguglio was arraigned at Superior Court in Derby Friday.
Public Defender Jonathan Gable said in court that Briguglio intends to dispute the charges.
“He does contest the allegations, he wants to be back in Texas as fast as he can,” Gable said.
Judge Peter Brown set bond at $1 million for Briguglio and continued the case to Feb. 9, at which point Briguglio will likely be turned over to Texas police.
According to an arrest warrant, Briguglio is accused of shooting 22-year-old Wilbert James Outlaw II, in the early morning hours of New Year’s Day at an apartment complex in Stafford, Texas.
Police found Outlaw’s body in a breezeway at the apartment about 2 a.m. Jan. 1 while responding to report of gunfire. He had been shot once in the upper back.
The warrant says Briguglio was jealous of Outlaw because Musante had been staying with him, and sent several threatening texts to Outlaw’s phone.
Police also found several videos on Outlaw’s phone deptcting Outlaw, Briguglio, and Musante “with a multitude of firearms and narcotics.”
While searching the area after finding Outlaw’s body, police found Musante’s ID outside the apartment complex in a purse, the warrant says.
In addition, a person told police they had driven the couple to the apartment complex on the night of the killing.
The person waited in the car for about five minutes, after which they saw Briguglio, Musante, and four other men with hoods on running from the apartment.
Briguglio and Musante “quickly got back into (the) vehicle, had a sense of urgency about them, and were breathing heavily,” the person told police, but neither of them would elaborate on what had happened.
The witness said that later, at a hotel room where they had been partying, Briguglio and Musante locked themselves in the bathroom and ran the shower off and on for about two hours.
Police later tested the person’s vehicle with blood visualizing agent where Briguglio and Musante had been sitting in it and “a strong positive result was immediately obtained,” the warrant says.
Police said Musante would be referred to juvenile court for extradition because she is 17.
