One of the accused was from Winsted, the other from Norfolk

By Lloyd Garrison

It was nine months ago in January that John Hester, who oversees the Battell Stoeckel estate and the Yale summer music and arts campus, phoned Barracks B in Canaan after fresh tire tracks in the snow led him to spot missing copper downspouts on one of the estate’s main buildings.

Similar thefts the night of January 26 were discovered at the Norfolk Library and the chapel of the Congregational Church, where an infrared surveillance camera recorded two men hauling away downspouts in a Ford 150 pickup.

Norfolk Now reported in March that “arrests are imminent” in the case. But as months passed without any arrests, both Rev. Erick Olsen and Librarian Luisa Sabin-Kildiss began to feel that law enforcement had passed them by. It had, but, as it turned out, it was by design.

It didn’t take long for Resident Trooper Greg Naylor to identify 31 year old Christopher Goodall, who was residing in the home of his mother on Greenwoods Road East, and Joseph Carotenuti, 32, of Park Place in Winsted, as the culprits. He had the video footage, however blurry, he had photos of the tire and boot marks in the snow, he had fingerprints and a discarded red “Timeless Brand” cigarette box that Goodall later identified as the brand Carotenuti smoked.

A week later, he also had a call from Hester who said he had spotted the Ford 150 parked by Haystack. The license plates showed Chris Goodall as the truck’s owner. There was a copper pipe in the cargo bed. When Goodall appeared with a woman and two children, he agreed to show Naylor the bottom of his boots, which matched the impressions photographed in the snow on January 29. The tire treads also matched those at the crime scene.

Three days later, in a signed statement at Naylor’s resident trooper’s office, Goodall said he had been medically discharged from the Army after being wounded in Afghanistan. He admitted driving the truck to the Yale campus to help out Carotenuti, a childhood friend, who had a heroin problem, and took one downspout.

Goodall and Carotenuti were back in Naylor’s office two weeks later to admit that they also took downspouts at the church but denied taking missing copper items from the library, a house on Mountain Road and a church in Colebrook. Carotenuti said he had intended to sell the copper as salvage in Waterbury, but that fearful of being discovered, he had stashed them in a Winsted dumpster, which was hauled away. “I am confessing my involvement in this crime to make good on a very bad decision,” he said in his signed statement. “After we leave, Chris and I are going to the church in Norfolk to apologize.”

They never did. According to Naylor, Carotenuti is a convicted felon “with an extensive criminal history including multiple arrests.” A search of criminal records revealed that Goodall had been apprehended for “wrongful cocaine use” in 2005 by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division.

Naylor decided to delay serving arrest warrants in the hope of getting more evidence to tie Goodall to other thefts. He didn’t have long to wait. On May 23, Clinton Webb and Judith Eppolito, who are Goodall’s next door neighbors at 93 Greenwoods Rd East, noticed money missing from Webb’s wallet on the kitchen table. Several more thefts of money from the wallet led them to install a video surveillance camera they bought at Best Buy. It recorded a likeness of Goodall crouching down across the kitchen and stealing bait money from the wallet.

Confronted with Webb’s careful detective work, Goodall again sat across from Naylor in the Resident Trooper’s office and admitted the thefts, saying he was in agony from pain pill withdrawal and needed money for a Percocet fix. He has since been arrested on burglary and larceny charges in connection with the Webb case and on class D felony charges in connection with the downspout thefts. Both he and Carotenuti are free on bail while awaiting trial dates in Bantam Superior Court.

Christopher Goodall appeared at Bantam Superior Court on Dec. 2 on the charge of stealing from his neighbors Clinton Webb and Judith Eppolito. His lawyer is J.E. Townsend and the judge is Richard M. Marano. Photo by Bruce Frisch.