Nearly 24 hours after breaking into a home in eastern Connecticut — hiding from police seeking to question him about a violent killing with a samurai sword — Peter Manfredonia grabbed food, guns and car keys and told his hostage it was all “gonna end in a shootout or a death row thing,” according to a law enforcement source.
The 6-foot-3 University of Connecticut finance and engineering student allegedly stole the man’s vehicle and fled. By the time he was caught in the woods behind a truck stop in western Maryland, more than 300 miles from the bloody murder scene in rural Willington, he had killed a former Newtown High School classmate, kidnapped that man’s girlfriend and stolen at least two cars, police said.