As Halloween approaches, people sit around and tell spooky stories, now let The Hawkeye tell Newtown’s spooky dark side.
A femur bone was discovered during renovation, at a Newtown Property on April 15, 2010. This led police to investigate, and later find a full human skeleton that was identified as Elizabeth Heath.
Heath went missing in 1984 while she was divorcing her husband. The investigation by the coroner matched teeth found in a skull unearthed. Police said the death was being investigated as a homicide.
The femur was found while workers were performing renovation work. The bone was discovered in an old dry well in the basement of the barn. The dry well was covered by a wood board and cement.
“When the boards and the cement were removed, garbage bags full of bedding and a femur were found, when police arrived, they said more bones were found and that an entire human skeleton had been located,” The new homeowner said.
John Heath left the property in 2005 when the bank foreclosed the home.
“They left in the middle of the night, just suddenly left, and a bunch of people living there were suddenly gone,” neighbor Suzanne Lesto said.
Two years of investigation by Newtown and state police would result in John Heath’s arrest on one count of murder.
Another story was when Richard Crafts, a Newtown resident, was accused and later found guilty of murdering his wife and disposing of her body in a woodchipper, was arrested in January 1987.
Helle Crafts, a Pan Am flight attendant, had vanished in November 1986, although her body was never found, authorities did not find enough evidence to convict him of murder.
Following her disappearance, friends immediately suspected Richard Crafts because his answers about his wife’s whereabouts had been so evasive.
When police got involved, Craft’s version of the events began to crumble. Although he claimed he had not left the house on November 19, credit card showed he had purchased new bedding, a chest freezer, and a rented wood chipper in the days before Helle’s disappearance.
A witness then came forward saying that he had seen a wood chipper near the Housatonic river. A search of the craft house revealed a mattress with a blood smear on the mattress that was the same as Helle’s blood type.
Detectives also found an envelope containing a letter addressed to Helle near the river. Divers also found a chain saw and serrated cutting bar, which has human hair and tissue embedded on the teeth.
The Hawkeye doesn’t want to scare you into nightmares, so the story ends here, for now.
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