Copters and canines used in hunt for retired teacher

By Lloyd Garrison

For two days in April, Norfolk witnessed numerous police cruisers on the prowl and two helicopters searching for Joseph Pappalardo, a 60-year old East Hartford man who had abandoned his parked Toyota Avalon at Station Place. Police said he was thought to be suicidal.
But they were mum about why Pappalardo may have been distraught, giving rise to speculation that he may have been fleeing a criminal investigation. Someone exiting the post office said she had heard that Secret Service men were part of the search team. A widely circulated rumor asserted that his body had been found in the pond behind the Yale Music Shed. Neither was true.

What can now be said is that Pappalardo had filed a suit last year in Florida claiming he had been threatened with death and blackmailed for being gay to the tune of over $670,000 by inmates in an Oklahoma prison run by Geo Group of Boca Raton, FL.
The suit charged Geo Group, which owns or operates prisons in the United States, Britain, Australia and South Africa, with failing to supervise the inmates involved. The suit seeks damages of $670,000 with interest plus payment of legal fees. “He doesn’t want a windfall,” says Fort Lauderdale attorney Craig Pugatch, who is representing Pappalardo along with New Haven lawyer Jeffrey Hellman.
According to the Florida Sun Sentinel, “the allegations date back to February 2011, when Pappalardo was looking to meet other men for companionship on the dating site MegaMates, which connects users by phone and Internet. Pappalardo thought he was talking to other gay men.”

Who he was talking to were apparently convicts or their accomplices who had hacked into the otherwise legitimate website and gained access to details about Pappalardo’s life and family. A former school teacher, Pappalardo desperately wanted to shield his predicament from his parents and relatives. He not only failed, but spent his life’s savings trying to avoid being outed.
East Hartford police sergeant Joe McGeough, who led the search team that was supported by locally based state police, was obviously respectful of the family’s desire for anonymity. He revealed nothing to Norfolk residents about why their son might be depressed or anxious to hurt himself. “All I can say is he was depressed,” McGeough told anyone who asked.

Norfolk might never have been involved if two residents meeting over coffee, Stephanie Gouey, who owns the Station Place Cafe, and Andy Smith, who works across the street at Boyce Nemec Designs, had not begun discussing the origin of the Toyota Avalon parked for over a month on Station Place.

Gouey recalls,”We talked a lot about who might have left the car, and why. Finally, I just picked up the phone and called the barracks on April 6. The first troopers and East Hartford police came by that Sunday. By Monday the choppers were up, the search dogs were out and there were more police searching the grounds all around town.” By Wednesday, the car had been towed away and was handed over to family members in East Hartford. There is still no word of what has become of its owner.