Federal authorities and police from two states are desperately searching for a University of Connecticut senior who they say has brutally murdered two people.
The hunt for Peter Manfredonia on Wednesday entered its sixth day as police said that they believed the suspect may be hiding in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains.
Pennsylvania state troopers, working with Connecticut police and the FBI, have been combing the area in rural northeastern Pennsylvania but, as of Wednesday morning, had found no trace of Manfredonia.
The 23-year-old UConn student is alleged to have brutally killed two people before fleeing Connecticut. Police say that he hacked 62-year-old Ted DeMers, of Willington, Connecticut to death with a machete last Thursday. He also is believed to have later killed his own high school friend, Nicholas Eisele, 23, about 70 miles away in Derby.
Manfredonia was last seen Sunday on surveillance video walking on railroad tracks in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. He had a duffle bag that authorities said could contain items that he may have taken in a recent home invasion, including three shotguns and a pistol.
Connecticut State Police have urged Manfredonia to give himself up.
“We want you to be able to tell your story,” Lt. John Aiello said on Tuesday. “We are hear to listen to you. Your parents, your friends, all of us back here in Connecticut want a peaceful end to this.”
“Your family has hired an attorney on your behalf and your rights will be safeguarded … Please call 911, let us know where you are, we want to resolve this in a safe way. Please call us, we are waiting here to listen to you.”
Michael Dolan, the lawyer hired by the suspect’s family, said that Manfredonia has struggled with mental health issues for years, but has never been violent.
And, in a chilling turn of events first reported by the Hartford Courant, it emerged that Manfredonia grew up on the same Newtown, Conn. street as Adam Lanza, the shooter in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.