Emanuel Lovell Webb was sentenced in 2008 to 60 years in prison for three murders committed in the East End of Bridgeport, Connecticut, between 1990 and 1993. The women he was convicted of killing lived in the same neighborhood and knew one another. The cases stayed unsolved until 2006, after a re-examination by the Bridgeport police cold case unit sent evidence to the FBI and a national DNA database returned his name. By then Webb had been living in Georgia for years. He had moved there in August 1993, and in 1994 he had pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the death of a woman in Vidalia. His DNA profile had been taken because of that conviction.
Webb did not stand trial in Connecticut. In May 2008 he entered conditional pleas of nolo contendere to three counts of murder, a plea in which a defendant does not contest the charge, and he kept the right to appeal two pretrial rulings that had gone against him. The court found him guilty on all three counts and sentenced him in June 2008. A fourth murder charge, in the death of a woman found in June 1993, was to be dropped under the plea agreement. The Connecticut Appellate Court affirmed the three convictions on May 24, 2011.
Little about Webb's early life was reported. According to the Appellate Court, he worked in construction and lived in Bridgeport from at least 1990 until August 1993, when he left for Georgia. His date of birth and family background were not reported.
In its 2011 opinion the Appellate Court identified the Bridgeport women only by first name and last initial, explaining that the cases had an obvious sexual component.
The first woman, Sharon C., was 39. She died on or about April 1, 1990, in Bridgeport. The cause of death was asphyxia from strangulation, according to the facts recited by the Appellate Court.
Minnie S. was 29 and lived on the east side of Bridgeport. She died in Bridgeport on or about March 28, 1992. The court recorded the causes of death as stab wounds and strangulation.
Elizabeth G. was 33. She died in Bridgeport on or about April 16, 1993, according to the opinion, which also gives April 19 as the date she was found. The causes of death were blunt force head trauma and strangulation. When the state brought its cases in 2007, her death was charged under its own docket number.
Sheila E. was also 29. She was found dead in Bridgeport on or about June 28, 1993, after she had been missing for several days. The medical examiner was unable to determine the cause or manner of her death because of the time that had passed, although strangulation was suggested. That gap in the medical evidence later decided how her case was handled in court.
According to the evidence summarized by the Appellate Court, they lived in the same area of Bridgeport's east side, belonged to the same social circle and knew each other. The state's expert described them as women who were not sex workers and who had histories of drug use, as part of the shared background of the cases. The court referred to this as the "backcloth" of the cases: the setting of each victim's life.
Little else about the women's lives, their work or their families was reported.
In August 1993 Webb moved from Bridgeport to Georgia. In July 1994 a 37-year-old woman, identified in the Connecticut opinion as Evelyn C., was found dead in Vidalia, Georgia, on July 10.
Webb was arrested and confessed. According to the Appellate Court, he told investigators that her death had been accidental and that he had then staged the scene to look like a robbery. He pleaded guilty in a Georgia court to involuntary manslaughter. His Georgia sentence, and whether he faced other charges in that case, have not been reported. It does say that, because of the Georgia conviction, his DNA profile was entered into CODIS, the national DNA index used by law enforcement.
The Georgia case ended in a manslaughter plea. In Connecticut it was offered not as a charge but as evidence of identity, and its similarity to the Bridgeport deaths became one of the central questions in the case.
The Appellate Court recorded that the deaths of Sharon C., Minnie S. and Elizabeth G. went unsolved at first. According to the Associated Press, the Bridgeport police Cold Case Unit began taking a second look at the killings of about 15 women from the late 1980s and early 1990s in 2000. The unit had two members, Detectives Heitor Teixeira and Robert Sherback. They concluded that ten of the killings had some similarities.
The detectives sent evidence from four of the homicide cases to the FBI, which could compare it with the DNA profiles of convicted offenders across the country held in the Combined DNA Index System. The AP noted that the technology and the nationwide database needed for such a comparison did not exist in the early 1990s, when the women died. The Appellate Court likewise recorded that the cold case unit had been assigned the cases for several years before the DNA matches were developed.
The database matched Webb's profile to evidence from all four cases, police said in June 2006. At that point Webb was held at a prison in Folkston, Georgia, on a parole violation, according to the AP. Jonathan Benedict, the state's attorney in Bridgeport, said that authorities were talking with Georgia officials about bringing Webb to Connecticut, and he credited the cold case unit's persistence.
In 2007 the state charged Webb with four counts of murder, filed under two docket numbers. The first charged the murder of Elizabeth G. The second charged the murders of Sharon C., Minnie S. and Sheila E.
In June 2007 the state moved to consolidate all four charges for a single trial. Webb objected and moved to sever them. In August 2007 the trial court denied the state's motion without prejudice, leaving the door open to renew it.
The state renewed its motion to consolidate in May 2008. It also moved in limine to admit evidence of the Georgia death as uncharged misconduct, arguing that it tended to prove identity.
The state's expert was Gregg McCrary, a consultant who had spent ten years as an FBI special agent in the bureau's behavioral science unit. He performed what he called a crime scene analysis, looking at location, victimology, the method and manner of death, and the medical and laboratory reports, to decide whether the crimes shared a signature.
McCrary placed the Bridgeport deaths in the context of the city's homicides as a whole. Bridgeport recorded 287 homicides between 1990 and 1994, according to his analysis as summarized by the court. Strangulation appeared in fewer than 3 percent of them, which he described as statistically unusual. There were seven strangulation cases in those years, four involving women. One led to an arrest. The other three, those of Sharon C., Minnie S. and Elizabeth G., were unsolved at first.
He identified features common to the Bridgeport cases: the shared background of the women, strangulation, a sexual component, secondary injuries beyond those needed to cause death, and Webb's DNA at each scene. He concluded that the four Bridgeport cases were likely the work of one person. He also linked the Georgia case, pointing to five features: a victim who was not a sex worker, strangulation, a sexual component, secondary injuries, and Webb's own confession.
The defense called Edward McDonough, an associate medical examiner, who had examined the records of all four Bridgeport women. He agreed that the cases were broadly related through strangulation, but he stressed that the other injuries differed from case to case, and he said Sheila E.'s cause of death was undetermined. The defense also pointed to differences between the scenes and to DNA from unidentified people found at all of the Bridgeport scenes.
On May 6, 2008 the trial court ruled on both motions. It consolidated the charges in the deaths of Sharon C., Minnie S. and Elizabeth G. for a single trial. It refused to add the charge in Sheila E.'s death. The medical examiner had been unable to establish strangulation, secondary injuries or even that her death was a homicide, and although the court acknowledged some similarities and the presence of Webb's DNA, it found those were not enough to establish the distinctive "criminal logo" the law required. The court also ruled that the Georgia evidence could be admitted to prove identity.
Webb then reached a plea agreement. He entered pleas of nolo contendere to the murders of Sharon C., Minnie S. and Elizabeth G., conditioned on his right to appeal the May 6 rulings. The state agreed to enter a nolle prosequi on the charge in Sheila E.'s death at sentencing. On May 22, 2008 the court accepted the pleas and found him guilty on each of the three counts.
On June 23, 2008 the court sentenced him to 60 years in prison on each count, the terms to run concurrently.
At the appeal stage Webb was represented by Neal Cone, a senior assistant public defender, with Kent Drager, a former senior assistant public defender, on the brief. The state was represented by Adam E. Mattei, a special deputy assistant state's attorney, with State's Attorney John C. Smriga, former State's Attorney Jonathan C. Benedict, Senior Assistant State's Attorney Joseph T. Corradino and Assistant State's Attorney Marc R. Durso on the brief.
Webb raised two claims. He argued that the trial court had improperly consolidated the three murder charges, and that it had improperly admitted the Georgia evidence. Both rulings rested on the idea that the evidence in each case would have been admissible in the others to prove who committed them.
A three-judge panel of the Connecticut Appellate Court, Judges Gruendel, Harper and Flynn, rejected both claims in an opinion by Judge Harper released on May 24, 2011. On joinder, the court noted the strong presumption in favor of trying related charges together and held that the three Bridgeport cases shared distinctive features that made their evidence cross-admissible on identity. Because the inference drawn from that shared pattern was strong, the court found that Webb had not been unduly prejudiced by a single trial.
On the Georgia evidence, the court held that the conduct was distinctive and highly probative of identity and that its value was not outweighed by unfair prejudice. The court also addressed Webb's argument about what DNA matches could prove on their own; it observed that he did not dispute that the matches would have allowed a jury to conclude the DNA was his. The judgments were affirmed.
Webb was not tried and did not admit the Bridgeport killings in court. His pleas of nolo contendere did not contest the charges, and the convictions rest on those pleas and the court's findings of guilt.
The death of Sheila E. was charged but not prosecuted to a verdict; under the plea agreement the state was to nolle the charge. The medical examiner was unable to determine whether her death was a homicide, although Webb's DNA was among the evidence the court considered.
The Georgia death was resolved by a guilty plea to involuntary manslaughter, on Webb's account that her death was accidental. The state's expert in Connecticut treated the Georgia case as part of the same pattern, and the courts admitted it for that purpose, but the Georgia conviction is for manslaughter, not murder.
In June 2006 police said investigators believed Webb might be connected to as many as six other Bridgeport homicides, beyond the four cases matched by DNA. The 2011 opinion mentions no charge against him in any other death, and it links him to no killings beyond the four Bridgeport deaths and the Georgia case.
On or about April 1, 1990: Sharon C., 39, dies in Bridgeport.
On or about March 28, 1992: Minnie S., 29, dies in her Bridgeport home.
On or about April 16, 1993: Elizabeth G., 33, dies in Bridgeport; she is found on April 19.
On or about June 28, 1993: Sheila E., 29, is found dead in Bridgeport.
August 1993: Webb moves from Bridgeport to Georgia.
July 10, 1994: Evelyn C., 37, is found dead in Vidalia, Georgia. Webb later confesses and pleads guilty to involuntary manslaughter.
2000: The Bridgeport police Cold Case Unit begins re-examining the killings of about 15 women.
June 2006: Police say the national DNA database has matched Webb to all four Bridgeport cases; he is held in a Georgia prison on a parole violation.
2007: Connecticut charges Webb with four counts of murder under two docket numbers.
June 2007: The state moves to consolidate the four charges; in August 2007 the motion is denied without prejudice.
May 6, 2008: The trial court consolidates three of the cases, refuses to add the fourth, and rules the Georgia evidence admissible.
May 22, 2008: The court accepts Webb's conditional pleas of nolo contendere and finds him guilty of three murders.
June 23, 2008: Webb is sentenced to 60 years on each count, concurrent.
May 24, 2011: The Connecticut Appellate Court affirms the convictions.