Police are still piecing together the details of a crash in Ansonia more than a week ago that sent four people to the hospital, knocked out power to nearly 200 people, and closed a street for hours.
Ansonia Police Lt. Andrew Cota said Tuesday (May 27) that detectives are probing the accident, in which a car appeared to careen down a Route 8 exit ramp before colliding with a parked SUV, a utility pole and a building — Children’s Medical Associates, at 20 Westfield Ave.
Cota identified the car’s four occupants, one of whom was convicted in a grisly Woodbury robbery-homicide nearly 40 years ago.
“This case is still under investigation and no arrests have been made yet,” Cota wrote in an email Tuesday (May 27).
Cota said four Waterbury residents were in the car at the time of the accident — David Sanchez, 28, Elizabeth Doyle, 47, Pamela Pelletier, 51, and Stanley Chenkus, 59.
Chenkus, who police believe was behind the wheel at the time of the accident, pleaded guilty in connection to the May 1978 stabbing deaths of Henry Kulesza and Bruce Gilbert, who were found dead in a Woodbury antiques shop they owned and lived in.
According to an August 24, 2009 story in the Waterbury Republican-American, John Meeker, the town’s resident state trooper, described the scene of the crime as “something out an Alfred Hitchcock film.”
“The house had been ransacked and Gilbert, 66, lay dead on the kitchen floor with stab wounds all over his body and a television dropped on top of him,” the story read. “As Meeker searched the home, he found Gilbert’s companion, Henry Kulesza, 52, nude in the front foyer with a 5‑inch butcher knife embedded in his chest up to the handle.”
Chenkus was initially charged with felony murder in the case, but agreed to testify against a co-defendant and plead guilty to conspiracy to commit first-degree robbery.
It’s unclear how much prison time Chenkus served in that case. He has other convictions on his record dating from 2004 to 2008.
The Valley Indy left a message Tuesday afternoon at the publicly listed telephone number for Chenkus.
Cota said Doyle, Pelletier, and Chenkus were all released from the hospital as of Friday, May 23.
Sanchez was still hospitalized for serious injuries to his right arm and leg, Cota said.
Westfield Avenue was closed to traffic most of the day Monday as crews repaired the damage wrought by the crash and detectives looked for evidence at the scene.
Emergency radio transmissions also indicated that police seized evidence from a hospital where the crash victims were transported for treatment.
