Murder in Woodstock

Big Bird

Carroll Spinney

Seventy-two-year-old Carroll Spinney's estate is set back a ways from Brickyard Road. Looking at the property from the street, it's hard to pick up on how enormous the house and the land accompanying it actually are. "Nice grounds," someone who has spent some time on the property told me later, "almost like a retreat with ponds." The one thing that is clear, however, is, Spinney likes to take care of his property—and the landscaping and gardening throughout is expensive and immaculate. Spinney was born in Waltham, Massachusetts, and made his name in show business as a puppeteer, mainly playing the roles of Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street, an experience he once described humorously to a newspaper reporter as being, "A lot like growing up to be Mickey Mouse—only taller."

The Spinney estate, which Spinney shares with his wife and three children, is situated on a sect of land so far into North Woodstock that part of the property actually resides in Southbridge, Massachusetts. Scott Deojay, whose name was on the receipt the state police had found, was a thirty-six-year-old convicted felon from Plainfield, Connecticut, about a forty-five-minute drive south of Woodstock. He had been employed by Spinney for a quite a while. Deojay was a hard worker with a solid build and, one man who interviewed him later told me, "was one of the best stone masons I have ever seen." Beyond building fountains and steps and patios, Deojay took care of Spinney's property and kept up with the pruning and weeding and grass cutting and all things a landscaper-caretaker might be responsible for. He kept to himself, for the most part, and did his work. Save for a few local merchants, no one in Woodstock had really known Scott Deojay or could claim they had seen him around town. If you didn't know he worked for Spinney, you wouldn't even think he was from town. He traveled into Woodstock in the morning, worked, and generally left in the evening. During the week of December 12, the Spinneys had gone off to Europe on holiday.