When 22-year veteran New Haven Police Officer Lisa Wexler took a job with Seymour’s force last July, she thought she was “coming to the country to kiss babies and shake hands.”
Instead, she said she encountered the most heinous case of her career on Thursday after being dispatched to a house on Eleanor Road.
Now Arthur Gauvin, 58, is charged with cruelty to persons, first-degree unlawful restraint, and second-degree reckless endangerment.
The person he allegedly held captive? His adult sister, whose name was not released.
An anonymous tip about 7:30 p.m. led police to the address — 10 Eleanor Road — for a welfare check on a 56-year-old woman living in the house.
Officers were greeted at the home by the woman’s family — and also by what police described as an overpowering “foul odor.”
They were then led to the woman’s bedroom, where they found something else curious — a lock on the outside to prevent the woman from getting out.
When they got the door open, they found the woman living in what Wexler called the worst conditions she’s ever seen in her law enforcement career.
“It was just astonishing,” Deputy Police Chief Paul Satkowski said at a press conference Friday afternoon.
The woman was covered in urine and feces, which a prosecutor said made her skin break down.
She was frail, weak, and malnourished, cops said.
Article continues after video of Satkowski during Friday’s press conference.
Conditions were so bad the officers themselves couldn’t stand it — they had to leave the house and send an officer back in wearing a hazmat suit and self-contained breathing gear.
The room’s one window was “blacked out” and there were boards nailed over it to prevent it from being opened.
But the sister herself seemed unaware of the squalor, Wexler said, greeting police “very defensively” and giving what seemed like “rehearsed” answers to their questions.
“Someone had been coaching her, in my opinion,” Wexler said.
In short, the officer said, Gauvin’s sister was “brainwashed.”
The woman was taken by Seymour Ambulance to Yale-New Haven Hospital.
“Even some of the physicians and doctors, the nurses were mortified by her condition when she was brought in,” Satkowski said.
The woman remained hospitalized Friday.
Charges Pile Up
Police said Gauvin posted a $20,000 bond on those charges and was on his way out of the police station Thursday night when he saw his daughter sitting in the lobby.
Fearing she was about to give police a statement against him, cops say, Gauvin threatened to kick her and her daughter out of the house if they talked.
The daughter told cops, who promptly charged Gauvin with witness tampering and held him overnight on $25,000 bond.
Gauvin was arraigned Friday at Superior Court in Derby, where the charges against him continued to get more serious.
Prosecutors filed new charges of second-degree kidnapping and first-degree assault on a disabled person in the case.
Prosecutor Kim Northrop asked Judge Karen Sequino to raise Gauvin’s bond to more than $1 million, saying Gauvin is conservator for his sister, who has unspecified health issues, and has control over her assets.
“This victim is hospitalized now. We don’t have complete information about the extent of her injuries, but I can tell the court that she is malnourished, and her skin is breaking down as a result of the feces and urine that was covering her body,” Northrop said.
“He is a danger to others,” the prosecutor went on.
A bail commissioner said in court that Gauvin had no criminal record.
Police said he worked at a Woodbridge auto dealership.
Judge Sequino set bond for Gauvin at $125,000 and continued the case to May 13, when Gauvin will appear at Superior Court in Milford, which handles the area’s most serious cases.
Gauvin was still incarcerated as of late Friday, but Sequino ordered him to stay away from his sister and daughter if he posts bond — and stay away from his Eleanor Drive house.
That prompted Gauvin to speak up.
“First of all, the house is in my ownership,” Gauvin said.
“It’s in your ownership but it’s no longer in your possession,” Judge Sequino responded. “The court has the power to order you out of your residence, and I’ve just done that.”
Motive?
In fact, police believe Gauvin’s ownership of the home is what motivated him to keep his sister locked up.
In a press release announcing the arrest Friday morning, police said Gauvin kept his sister locked up inside of the house because he feared losing the property to the state.
Town land records indicate Gauvin became owner of the house in 2007. No sale price is listed.
“Apparently the female victim signed the house over to Gauvin approximately seven years ago,” the press release said. “Gauvin then was responsible for taking care of the victim for nine years before she could receive any services from the State of Connecticut.”
Satkowski said detectives were still investigating the details that legal transaction, but that Gauvin might have gained ownership of the home because of his sister’s health issues.
Article continues after a video showing the end of Friday’s press conference.
The legal status between Gauvin and his sister was unclear Friday. Northrop said Gauvin was his sister’s conservator, while police said he had power of attorney over her.
“I think there was concern that if she needed medical care or followup care and he was not able to pay for it, then the state would possibly take the house … for her to get that care,” Satkowski said Friday.
Others living at the home were aware of the situation, he said.
“I believe they knew what was going on, but obviously they had concerns that if they spoke up they would be retaliated against,” Satkowski said.
Outside the home Friday morning, Gauvin’s daughter declined to comment.
Police and prosecutors would continue to investigate the case and decide if any more charges will be filed, Satkowski said.
Neighbors who spoke to the Valley Indy Friday said Gauvin is by outward appearances a nice person to say hi to or with whom talk to briefly.
But they figured something might be amiss because they hadn’t seen Gauvin’s sister around for some time.
Casimir and Eva Grusz, who have lived in a house next door for 60 years, said the Gauvin siblings had occupied the home for decades, and had inherited it from their parents.
They described the family as nice people, but said they suspected there might be something untoward going on in the home.
“This has been going on for many years,” Eva Grusz said. “It’s not a shock.”
Prior Calls
Satkowski said police had been dispatched to the home in 2010 and then again in 2012 to look into the welfare of Gauvin’s sister.
But on both occasions they found nothing suspicious at the home, he said.
“We’ve been at that residence several times, on numerous and various calls,” Satkowski said.
In the 2010 incident, the sister “was in a healthy state of mind,” he said.
“Her physical condition was excellent,” he Satkowski said. “The case was basically closed out.”
“We were there again in 2012, there was a concern again that the victim was not being cared for,” Satkowski said, but officers “did not find any reason to be alarmed.”
The siblings lived at the home with Gauvin’s daughter and the daughter’s 6‑year-old child, he said. Two of the daughter’s friends were staying in the basement of the home as well.
He said the state’s Department of Children and Families is also investigating because a child lived in the home.
Wexler thanked the anonymous tipster who brought the case to the attention of cops.
“Thank God for good citizens who brought this to the forefront and got police involved,” she said.
