Murder in Woodstock

The Headband

At some point on the night of December 12, 2005, a teletype went out to all the local police departments and other law enforcement agencies from the Troop D Barracks:

The missing person is identified as JUDITH NILAN DOB: 6/7/61. She is described as a white female 5'2" 100lbs, brown hair, brown eyes last seen wearing brown ear warmers, yellow windbreaker with dark stripe, dark running pants, and white sneakers. Anyone who may have seen this female jogging in Woodstock about 4:30 p.m. on Monday 12/12/05 is asked to contact Connecticut State Police.

The State Police had no luck finding Judy as 8:00 p.m. became 9:00 p.m. By the time the clock struck 10:00 p.m., there was still no sign of Judy. It was as if she had run away, which Jon Baker knew wasn't the case. Something had happened. Judy would never be gone this long without calling, without telling someone where she was or what she was doing.

And then a clue—one very important piece of evidence that gave investigators a cold feeling that this missing person case wasn't going to turn out the way everyone had hoped. It was a subtle clue that led investigators to believe something more sinister and violent had happened to Judy.

Brickyard Road sign

At 10:25 p.m., Trooper Michael Robinson, doing a sweep of the neighborhood, searching the streets with a spotlight, came upon a piece of clothing. As Robinson was traveling west on Redhead Hill Road—which connected English Neighborhood Road, where Judy and Jon lived, to Brickyard Road, in a semi-triangular-shaped tract of land—the trooper spied something on the road, off to the south side. It was a black-and-gray-colored headband. Jon Baker had not reported that Judy was wearing a headband, but it wasn't so much to think that she had left the house with one on. It was cold out. She had ear muffs on. The headband made sense. Moreover, the road where it was found was part of Judy's normal running path.

Brickyard Road headed towards the Spinney estate

The headband wasn't what piqued the state police's interest, however. When Robinson got out of his cruiser and began combing the immediate area near the headband, he found a receipt from a local sales and service store that sold all sorts of heavy equipment and tools. Among the items on the receipt was a chainsaw. The date of the purchase was December 10, 2005, just two days ago. A man named Scott Deojay had signed for the receipt on the account of Carroll Spinney, who had an enormous estate on Brickyard Road. Spinney was, in a sense, Big Bird, from the Public Television's hit show Sesame Street. Spinney, a puppeteer, had played Big Bird for years.

Beyond that, Robinson found something else—something that pointed to trouble. There were "several spots of blood like substance" on the receipt.

Upon a further look, Robinson also noted that "minute bloodlike spots ... [were] on the snow next to where" the headband and receipt were located. What was more, the receipt, Robinson smartly observed, had not showed any signs of "weathering." It was as if it had been placed there within the past day or so.

Turning around, heading back to his cruiser, Robinson saw something else—a clue that, along with everything else, made investigators assume something terribly violent had taken place on the road where the receipt and headband were uncovered.