Murder in Woodstock

The Bloody Receipt

A lead, to an investigator, is everything—and it doesn't really matter how big or small that lead is. State Police had a receipt with a few drops of blood on it. They had two names: Carroll Spinney and Scott Deojay. They knew the name of the store the receipt had been generated from. They had a headband. Two credible witnesses had seen Judy. Still, could they tie all of it, including that one small slip of paper with blood on it, to Judy's disappearance? Sometimes the most obvious set of circumstances fail to add up. There's always an anomaly in there somewhere. What was it here?

At 4:10 a.m., Connecticut State Police Detectives Michael Contre and Richard Bedard dragged the owner of the sales and service equipment center the bloody receipt had been generated from out of bed. He lived in Putnam, a solid thirty-minute drive from Woodstock. Did he know these people, Spinney and Deojay? If so, who were they?

The area of Redhead Hill Road where Judy's headband and the bloody receipt had been located was now considered a crime scene. It had been taped off and investigators were sweeping the region for other potential evidence.

"Carroll Spinney is a good customer," the owner of the sales and service center said.

They asked him about the other name on the receipt: Scott Deojay.

The man thought about it for a moment. Then, "I recall Deojay and a heavyset female with blonde hair coming in on December 8." His records verified the visit by Deojay. "He wanted to purchase a chainsaw and bar oil and he wanted to put them on Carroll Spinney's account." The man said he asked Deojay who he was and how he had access to Spinney's account. Deojay, the man recalled, replied, "I'm the outside caretaker and work for Spinney."

The guy wasn't buying Deojay's story, however, and told him to hit the brick.

Deojay was upset. He said he needed the tool and oil to perform some work on Spinney's property. He was beginning to get impatient and visibly angry when the female with him ended up writing a check for the items.

"You have that check?" one of the detectives asked.

The man said he did.

Central Village, Connecticut

The woman was from Central Village, Connecticut, a small town just outside Plainfield, Deojay's hometown.

"Did he ever return?" asked one of the detectives.

The owner of the sales and service said Deojay had indeed returned, just recently. A few days ago. It was December 10. He bought a "splitting maul and several other items," the guy said, looking at an invoice for the transaction. This time he was allowed to put the items on Spinney's account.

The detectives had a photograph of Scott Deojay, a rather plain looking man with a thick, Tony Orlando-Saddam Hussein-like mustache that fell down below his lip line, brown beady eyes, a perfectly round face, and two-day's worth of a stubble growing. He appeared dirty and unkempt. He looked like a loner—but also like a gardener. He was definitely a hard worker, that much was clear from his sun-drenched complexion and crow's feet on the corner of his eyes.

"That's him all right," said the owner of the store. "He was dressed in an orange rain type suit when he came in that day."

"Any idea what he was driving?"

"A small station wagon," said the owner of the store "... that was dark forest green in color ..."