April 10, 2025 • 21 mins
Landlord Geoffrey Ferguson, enraged over a bounced rent cheque, drove from North Carolina to Connecticut and unlawfully evicted his tenants by force. The murders that followed shocked the community and were described as the worst mass killing in Connecticut’s modern history.
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Sources:
DeGregory, Lane, April 1995, “Five found shot dead in Conn. home of local man”, The Virginian Pilot, https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/VA-Pilot/issues/1995/vp950421/04210495.htm
“Former Westporter convicted of mass murders found dead”, May 2003, WestportNow, https://www.westportnow.com/former_westporter_convicted_of_mass_murders_found_dead/
“State v. Ferguson (2002), May 28 2002, FindLaw, https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/ct-supreme-court/1247323.html
💡 Support me on Patreon to get ad-free episodes
https://www.patreon.com/prashsmurdermap
💰 Make a one-off contribution
Every little bit helps! If you'd like to make a one-time donation, you can do so via PayPal here: https://www.paypal.me/prashsmurdermap
🎧 Listen to my new podcast Curious Britain
Explore the mysteries, folklore, and forgotten stories of Britain. Listen now: https://linktr.ee/curiousbritainpodcast
🙏 Thank You!
Your support means the world to me and helps keep Prash’s Murder Map alive. I truly appreciate it!
Sources:
DeGregory, Lane, April 1995, “Five found shot dead in Conn. home of local man”, The Virginian Pilot, https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/VA-Pilot/issues/1995/vp950421/04210495.htm
“Former Westporter convicted of mass murders found dead”, May 2003, WestportNow, https://www.westportnow.com/former_westporter_convicted_of_mass_murders_found_dead/
“State v. Ferguson (2002), May 28 2002, FindLaw, https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/ct-supreme-court/1247323.html
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It wasn't clear what had prompted Jeffrey Kent Ferguson to
become a landlord, but now that he was, he was
personally convinced that he was a damn good one. He
lived in a rural, tree lined spot at Pinewood Acres
Drive in Powell's Point, down a quiet road just off
(00:22):
North Carolina's Carratoke Highway. He had lived there since nineteen
ninety three with his wife, Kerry, and their five year
old child, but they had recently had marital problems, and
Kerry had returned to her family in South Carolina so
they could spend some time apart. The rental property Ferguson
(00:46):
owned was five hundred miles away at one hundred and
sixty six Portland Avenue in Reading, Connecticut, a picturesque town
in Fairfield County in the southwestern part of the state.
He was originally a single family home, but Ferguson felt
it would be more profitable to convert it into three
(01:06):
separate apartments. The forty four year old landlord had a
taste for luxury, but not when it came to providing
for his tenants. He also had a propensity for rule breaking,
which coupled with his inflated opinion of his own DIY skills,
led to several problems, not least of which was his
(01:29):
refusal to seek the appropriate permissions to convert the house.
Had he done so, his project would never have been approved,
as Portland Avenue was in a zone where multifamily dwellings
were prohibited. Ferguson went ahead regardless and carried out most
of the work himself, cutting corners to save money instead
(01:53):
of hiring qualified tradespeople. The first floor of the property
were split into two separate apartments, while the third apartment
occupied the entire second floor. There was a modern two
story glass atrium on the side of the house with
a spiral staircase inside, which provided access to the second
(02:17):
floor from the ground. In nineteen ninety five, all three
apartments were occupied. In the front first floor apartment lived
a young woman named Lorraine Spear and a five year
old son. At the back costa Rican immigrant Freddy Altamarano
lived with three other men. The second floor was shared
(02:41):
by twenty one year old Scott Auerbach and twenty two
year old David Frolek. Their friend, twenty two year old
Jason trusser Witch was temporarily bunking with them while his
own home was being renovated. All three had known each
other for years and had graduated from the nearby Joel
(03:03):
Barlow High School. Although they were not outstanding students, they
had achieved good grades and had never been in trouble.
If their families had been asked to find something negative
to say about them, the worst they could come up
with was that David smoked cigarettes and his father always
(03:24):
wished he had done a little better academically. When they
were younger, Jason and Scott had been in the Scouts
together and enjoyed taking part in high school theater productions.
Now they both worked thirty minutes away in Stamford, where
colleagues described them as happy, go lucky, polite and generous.
(03:48):
In their spare time, they were enrolled as volunteer firefighters.
They had an enormous CD collection and enjoyed playing loud
rock music, but it never bothered the other tenants. Occasionally
they were visited by two other friends, twenty two year
old Sean Hiltoonan and twenty six year old David Gartrell.
(04:13):
The young men had moved in about six months ago
in September nineteen ninety four, but the apartment fell far
short of their expectations. The heating didn't work properly, and
the plumbing for the toilet was barely functional, so they
had to use a dilapidated old outhouse, but their landlord,
Jeffrey Ferguson, refused to fix it. They knew Ferguson had
(04:39):
a bad temper, but they had no idea that he
had a history of instigating violent disagreements with his tenants.
In nineteen ninety one, he had demanded the rent money
early from a tenant named Richard Marshall. Marshall knew his
rights and reminded Ferguson that he was entitled to make
(05:01):
payment up until the tenth of the month, and that
he would be legally allowed to re enter the apartment
if Ferguson locked him out. The tyrannical landlord cared little
for tenants' rights and threatened to break his legs if
he moved back in. Marshall subsequently left town for a
(05:21):
few days. When he returned to the apartment, he found
the locks had been changed and his belongings dumped unceremoniously
in the porch. Furious about being made homeless in a
flagrant contravention of his rights. Marshall told Ferguson that he
would call the police and ask them to help him
(05:43):
gain entry. Ferguson's chilling reply was call the cops and
I'll get my gun and go out in a blaze
of glory. Marshall thought better of pushing the point and
decided to cut his losses and find another apartment. A
(06:05):
couple of years later, tenant Troy Harvey had a similar experience.
He was a little late in paying the rent, and
Ferguson made an aggressive phone call, threatening to remove his
belongings and board up the house if payment was not
made by the next day. Like his predecessor Richard Marshall,
(06:27):
Harvey advised to quarressome landlord that tenants had legal protections
and that he would contact the police if he was
unfairly locked out. Ferguson replied that if he did that,
he would blow his head off with a shotgun. Stunned
by the explicit threat, Harvey sent his rental payment to
(06:50):
Ferguson by express delivery the next day and rapidly found
alternative accommodation. The three young men now living in the
Portland Avenue property were unaware of these earlier incidents. In
March nineteen ninety five, Scott, David and Jason's rent check
(07:12):
unexpectedly bounced and Jeffrey Ferguson hit the roof. Their spotless
track record and profuse apologies did nothing to allay his fury,
and rather than giving the young men a chance to
resolve the situation, he immediately started the eviction process. On Wednesday,
(07:35):
twenty ninth of March nineteen ninety five, Ferguson began the
ten hour drive from his home in North Carolina to Connecticut.
It was possible to fly or take a train, but
it wasn't a direct journey, so he preferred to take
the car, which gave him plenty of time to simmer
with rage as he passed through Delaware, New Jersey, and
(07:56):
New York en route The Cascade, Aiding rain drumming against
the windshield did little to improve his mood. The tenants
had gone to work by the time he had arrived
at Portland Avenue, so he accessed the second floor apartment
and removed their possessions, scattering them around the driveway. He
(08:18):
then knocked on the door of one of his downstairs
tenants Freddie Altamorano, and asked him to help carry the
beds outside. Not stopping there, Ferguson removed all the posters, photos, clothing, books,
and CDs from the apartment, and even took the thermostade
off the wall and ripped out the toilet. Finally, he
(08:42):
nailed a large piece of plywood over the door to
stop anyone entering. When Scott, Jason and David arrived home
at five point thirty pm, they were horrified to find
their worldly goods littering the ground outside the apartment and
saturated with rain water. They called the police, who advised
(09:07):
them they had been unlawfully evicted and that they had
the right to prize off the plywood and put everything
back inside. Unsettled and exhausted, after carrying their possessions back upstairs,
they checked their soaking, wet items and noticed that several
things were missing, including three hundred CDs, a video cassette recorder,
(09:31):
a Hi Fi unit, and a toolbox, which all amounted
to around three thousand dollars, more than twice the value
of their bounced rent check. They realized it would be
impossible to discuss the matter rationally with Ferguson, so they
commenced a small claims called proceeding. It was through this
(09:54):
formal process that the multiple building code violations came to
the attention of Reading a fe for the first time.
Not only was there no reliable heating source and a
leaking roof, but there were fire hazards everywhere, and the
home had been illegally converted into apartments without the relevant permits.
(10:18):
This was bad news for the renegade property owner, and
Ferguson was ordered to appear before the Reading Conservation Commission
on Tuesday eighteenth of April nineteen ninety five for violating
environmental laws. To make things worse, Reading Police Department applied
for a warrant for his arrest, intending to charge him
(10:40):
with criminal lockout. In Ferguson's mind, his tenants were solely
to blame for the situation and he wanted nothing more
than to punish them. On Monday seventeenth of April, the
afternoon before the hearing, Jeffrey Ferguson visited a car rental
(11:03):
shop in Harbinger, North Carolina and rented a fourth Tempo,
telling them he planned to visit his wife in South Carolina. Instead,
he drove the car back home to Powell's point, and,
for reasons best known to himself, removed the front license plate.
(11:23):
North Carolina was not a two plate state, but Connecticut was,
and he could have been pulled over and issued with
a fine for failure to display a license plate at
the front as well as the rear of the vehicle.
Ferguson drove all night, stopping for brief rest periods and
(11:44):
ruminating on how it would show his tenants that they
couldn't get the better of him. He arrived in Reading
at around twelve twenty pm The next day. Lorraine Spear,
who lived in the first floor apartment, was just going
to fetch her mail when she noticed him pulling into
(12:05):
the synagogue parking lot that had joined the property. She
knew it was Ferguson because she recognized his distinctive ponytail
and saw the North Carolina license plate, but she thought
it was unusual that he hadn't parked directly outside the apartments.
(12:25):
His activities over the next four hours were unaccounted for,
but at four PM, as Freddy Autamrano was watching TV,
the screen suddenly went black. He tried turning it off
and on, but it was completely dead. Glancing out of
the window, he observed Ferguson furtively slinking around outside. Disconcertingly,
(12:51):
the landlord appeared to be holding a pair of cable cutters,
had he deliberately cut the cable and telephone line for
the house. Altamrano continued watching through the window as Ferguson
bent down to fiddle with an oil tank pipe at
the base of the building, before climbing the ladder at
(13:11):
the side of the property, which provided access to the
second floor apartment via a sliding glass door. On the roof. Upstairs,
tenant David Froleck was shouting with his friend David Gartreell.
Their eyes were drawn by a sudden movement and they
were stunned when Jeffrey Ferguson entered the apartment, wearing a
(13:34):
twisted smile and holding a gun. They didn't have time
to react. Five gunshots rang out. Frolic was hit twice
and Gartreil three times, all the bullets aimed directly at
their heads. With glacial coldness, Jeffrey placed their bodies in
(13:59):
the bathroom, one on top of the other, then lay
in weight to ambush the others. At five point forty
five pm, Scott Auerbach and Jason truss Witch arrived home,
accompanied by their friend Sean Hiltoonan. As each man entered
(14:19):
the apartment, they were picked off by Ferguson in an
offhanded way that was more suited to someone playing a
carnival shooting game with an air gun. Aurbach did not
die immediately and managed to crawl out of the apartment,
but didn't make it to the stairs. Ignoring Aurbach, the
(14:43):
murderous homeowner poured oil over the other four men, which
he had obtained from the pipe outside before sneaking in.
He set them alight and then ignited several more fires
around the apartment and the basement. The other tenants called
the emergency services and ran from the burning building. As
(15:09):
they fled, they found Scott Auerback hanging from the spiral
staircase in the glass atrium, covered with blood. They pulled
him to safety, but he was barely alive when first
responders descended on the scene and bundled him into an ambulance.
Just before he fell unconscious, he summoned every remaining shread
(15:32):
of energy to gasp out the words Ferguson did it.
He died minutes before arriving at the hospital, each of
the five young men had died from gunshot wounds to
the head, fired by twenty two caliber semi automatic pistol.
(15:54):
Ferguson had already slipped away from the scene and was
driving towards his father in law's condo in Hilton Head,
South Carolina. After a short visit, he spent the night
at a motel, then returned the rented for Tempo with
its second license plate remounted on the front of the car.
(16:16):
The adometer on the vehicle would become key evidence in
the quintuple homicide investigation, as he had driven almost two
thousand miles in the three day rental period. Forensic tests
would later find a charred piece of clothing inside belonging
to one of the victims, along with evidence the floormat
(16:38):
had been exposed to a petroleum based accelerant. Jeffrey Ferguson
was arrested at his home at Pinewood Acres Drive at
two pm on twentieth of April, initially on charges of
larceny and criminal lockout, which allowed him to be held
just long enough for Connecticut State Police to question him
(17:00):
and pick him up on a murder charge. At the trial,
the defense attorney claimed the facts were circumstantial and that
most of the physical evidence had gone up in smoke.
The gun was also never recovered, but the prosecution had motive,
opportunity and forensics on their side, along with testimony from
(17:22):
extenants Richard Marshall and Troy Harvey, who came forward to
tell the powerful stories of their frightening run ins with
the Nightmare Landlord. The state of Connecticut was in shock
at the senseless killing of five popular young men who
were just beginning their adult lives, and newspaper headlines called
(17:44):
the crime the worst mass murder in Connecticut's modern history.
Ferguson had no criminal record prior to the massacre, and
his acquaintances in Powe's Point were astounded by the news.
Local man Jay Wickens described him as a pretty good neighbor,
(18:06):
adding he's always been quiet. I've only talked to him
three times, but he's a nice guy. Sam Lapowski, who
lived opposite the home in Westport, Connecticut, where Ferguson grew
up as a child and had once served as his
scout leader, said he didn't get along in school. He
(18:27):
bullied everyone. He nevertheless remembered Ferguson as being a good
scout who later worked as a laborer in town before
getting married and moving to North Carolina. The ponytailed and
handcuffed landlord chose not to give a statement in defense
(18:49):
of his actions, instead reading out a letter from his wife,
carry which included lyrics from Celine Dion's pop ballad because
You Loved Me. He offered neither explanations nor apologies. On
eleventh of June nineteen ninety eight, Jeffrey Ferguson gave no
(19:10):
reaction as he was sentenced to life in prison. Psychologists
found no diagnosable mental illness and noted that it was
not a crime of passion arising from ungovernable rage, but
had been carefully planned, from the method of entry to
the apartment through to the lighting of fires to conceal
(19:30):
his actions. Mister Frolic, a retired mechanical engineer and father
of eight, choked back tears as he talked about his son.
I often got on him for the wrong reasons, he said,
But David had more friends than I ever had. He
(19:51):
was always up, always smiling. I'm sorry to say I
missed the things he did, and now he's gone on Wednesday,
seventh of May two thousand and three, fifty two year
old Jeffrey Kent Ferguson committed suicide in prison by wrapping
a ligature around his neck and asphyxiating himself. Whether this
(20:16):
was brought on by regret for methodically gunning down five
men in the prime of life eight years before, we
will never know. You've been listening to Precious Murder Map.
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving me a
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(20:36):
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(20:57):
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It wasn't clear what had prompted Jeffrey Kent Ferguson to
become a landlord, but now that he was, he was
personally convinced that he was a damn good one. He
lived in a rural, tree lined spot at Pinewood Acres
Drive in Powell's Point, down a quiet road just off
(00:22):
North Carolina's Carratoke Highway. He had lived there since nineteen
ninety three with his wife, Kerry, and their five year
old child, but they had recently had marital problems, and
Kerry had returned to her family in South Carolina so
they could spend some time apart. The rental property Ferguson
(00:46):
owned was five hundred miles away at one hundred and
sixty six Portland Avenue in Reading, Connecticut, a picturesque town
in Fairfield County in the southwestern part of the state.
He was originally a single family home, but Ferguson felt
it would be more profitable to convert it into three
(01:06):
separate apartments. The forty four year old landlord had a
taste for luxury, but not when it came to providing
for his tenants. He also had a propensity for rule breaking,
which coupled with his inflated opinion of his own DIY skills,
led to several problems, not least of which was his
(01:29):
refusal to seek the appropriate permissions to convert the house.
Had he done so, his project would never have been approved,
as Portland Avenue was in a zone where multifamily dwellings
were prohibited. Ferguson went ahead regardless and carried out most
of the work himself, cutting corners to save money instead
(01:53):
of hiring qualified tradespeople. The first floor of the property
were split into two separate apartments, while the third apartment
occupied the entire second floor. There was a modern two
story glass atrium on the side of the house with
a spiral staircase inside, which provided access to the second
(02:17):
floor from the ground. In nineteen ninety five, all three
apartments were occupied. In the front first floor apartment lived
a young woman named Lorraine Spear and a five year
old son. At the back costa Rican immigrant Freddy Altamarano
lived with three other men. The second floor was shared
(02:41):
by twenty one year old Scott Auerbach and twenty two
year old David Frolek. Their friend, twenty two year old
Jason trusser Witch was temporarily bunking with them while his
own home was being renovated. All three had known each
other for years and had graduated from the nearby Joel
(03:03):
Barlow High School. Although they were not outstanding students, they
had achieved good grades and had never been in trouble.
If their families had been asked to find something negative
to say about them, the worst they could come up
with was that David smoked cigarettes and his father always
(03:24):
wished he had done a little better academically. When they
were younger, Jason and Scott had been in the Scouts
together and enjoyed taking part in high school theater productions.
Now they both worked thirty minutes away in Stamford, where
colleagues described them as happy, go lucky, polite and generous.
(03:48):
In their spare time, they were enrolled as volunteer firefighters.
They had an enormous CD collection and enjoyed playing loud
rock music, but it never bothered the other tenants. Occasionally
they were visited by two other friends, twenty two year
old Sean Hiltoonan and twenty six year old David Gartrell.
(04:13):
The young men had moved in about six months ago
in September nineteen ninety four, but the apartment fell far
short of their expectations. The heating didn't work properly, and
the plumbing for the toilet was barely functional, so they
had to use a dilapidated old outhouse, but their landlord,
Jeffrey Ferguson, refused to fix it. They knew Ferguson had
(04:39):
a bad temper, but they had no idea that he
had a history of instigating violent disagreements with his tenants.
In nineteen ninety one, he had demanded the rent money
early from a tenant named Richard Marshall. Marshall knew his
rights and reminded Ferguson that he was entitled to make
(05:01):
payment up until the tenth of the month, and that
he would be legally allowed to re enter the apartment
if Ferguson locked him out. The tyrannical landlord cared little
for tenants' rights and threatened to break his legs if
he moved back in. Marshall subsequently left town for a
(05:21):
few days. When he returned to the apartment, he found
the locks had been changed and his belongings dumped unceremoniously
in the porch. Furious about being made homeless in a
flagrant contravention of his rights. Marshall told Ferguson that he
would call the police and ask them to help him
(05:43):
gain entry. Ferguson's chilling reply was call the cops and
I'll get my gun and go out in a blaze
of glory. Marshall thought better of pushing the point and
decided to cut his losses and find another apartment. A
(06:05):
couple of years later, tenant Troy Harvey had a similar experience.
He was a little late in paying the rent, and
Ferguson made an aggressive phone call, threatening to remove his
belongings and board up the house if payment was not
made by the next day. Like his predecessor Richard Marshall,
(06:27):
Harvey advised to quarressome landlord that tenants had legal protections
and that he would contact the police if he was
unfairly locked out. Ferguson replied that if he did that,
he would blow his head off with a shotgun. Stunned
by the explicit threat, Harvey sent his rental payment to
(06:50):
Ferguson by express delivery the next day and rapidly found
alternative accommodation. The three young men now living in the
Portland Avenue property were unaware of these earlier incidents. In
March nineteen ninety five, Scott, David and Jason's rent check
(07:12):
unexpectedly bounced and Jeffrey Ferguson hit the roof. Their spotless
track record and profuse apologies did nothing to allay his fury,
and rather than giving the young men a chance to
resolve the situation, he immediately started the eviction process. On Wednesday,
(07:35):
twenty ninth of March nineteen ninety five, Ferguson began the
ten hour drive from his home in North Carolina to Connecticut.
It was possible to fly or take a train, but
it wasn't a direct journey, so he preferred to take
the car, which gave him plenty of time to simmer
with rage as he passed through Delaware, New Jersey, and
(07:56):
New York en route The Cascade, Aiding rain drumming against
the windshield did little to improve his mood. The tenants
had gone to work by the time he had arrived
at Portland Avenue, so he accessed the second floor apartment
and removed their possessions, scattering them around the driveway. He
(08:18):
then knocked on the door of one of his downstairs
tenants Freddie Altamorano, and asked him to help carry the
beds outside. Not stopping there, Ferguson removed all the posters, photos, clothing, books,
and CDs from the apartment, and even took the thermostade
off the wall and ripped out the toilet. Finally, he
(08:42):
nailed a large piece of plywood over the door to
stop anyone entering. When Scott, Jason and David arrived home
at five point thirty pm, they were horrified to find
their worldly goods littering the ground outside the apartment and
saturated with rain water. They called the police, who advised
(09:07):
them they had been unlawfully evicted and that they had
the right to prize off the plywood and put everything
back inside. Unsettled and exhausted, after carrying their possessions back upstairs,
they checked their soaking, wet items and noticed that several
things were missing, including three hundred CDs, a video cassette recorder,
(09:31):
a Hi Fi unit, and a toolbox, which all amounted
to around three thousand dollars, more than twice the value
of their bounced rent check. They realized it would be
impossible to discuss the matter rationally with Ferguson, so they
commenced a small claims called proceeding. It was through this
(09:54):
formal process that the multiple building code violations came to
the attention of Reading a fe for the first time.
Not only was there no reliable heating source and a
leaking roof, but there were fire hazards everywhere, and the
home had been illegally converted into apartments without the relevant permits.
(10:18):
This was bad news for the renegade property owner, and
Ferguson was ordered to appear before the Reading Conservation Commission
on Tuesday eighteenth of April nineteen ninety five for violating
environmental laws. To make things worse, Reading Police Department applied
for a warrant for his arrest, intending to charge him
(10:40):
with criminal lockout. In Ferguson's mind, his tenants were solely
to blame for the situation and he wanted nothing more
than to punish them. On Monday seventeenth of April, the
afternoon before the hearing, Jeffrey Ferguson visited a car rental
(11:03):
shop in Harbinger, North Carolina and rented a fourth Tempo,
telling them he planned to visit his wife in South Carolina. Instead,
he drove the car back home to Powell's point, and,
for reasons best known to himself, removed the front license plate.
(11:23):
North Carolina was not a two plate state, but Connecticut was,
and he could have been pulled over and issued with
a fine for failure to display a license plate at
the front as well as the rear of the vehicle.
Ferguson drove all night, stopping for brief rest periods and
(11:44):
ruminating on how it would show his tenants that they
couldn't get the better of him. He arrived in Reading
at around twelve twenty pm The next day. Lorraine Spear,
who lived in the first floor apartment, was just going
to fetch her mail when she noticed him pulling into
(12:05):
the synagogue parking lot that had joined the property. She
knew it was Ferguson because she recognized his distinctive ponytail
and saw the North Carolina license plate, but she thought
it was unusual that he hadn't parked directly outside the apartments.
(12:25):
His activities over the next four hours were unaccounted for,
but at four PM, as Freddy Autamrano was watching TV,
the screen suddenly went black. He tried turning it off
and on, but it was completely dead. Glancing out of
the window, he observed Ferguson furtively slinking around outside. Disconcertingly,
(12:51):
the landlord appeared to be holding a pair of cable cutters,
had he deliberately cut the cable and telephone line for
the house. Altamrano continued watching through the window as Ferguson
bent down to fiddle with an oil tank pipe at
the base of the building, before climbing the ladder at
(13:11):
the side of the property, which provided access to the
second floor apartment via a sliding glass door. On the roof. Upstairs,
tenant David Froleck was shouting with his friend David Gartreell.
Their eyes were drawn by a sudden movement and they
were stunned when Jeffrey Ferguson entered the apartment, wearing a
(13:34):
twisted smile and holding a gun. They didn't have time
to react. Five gunshots rang out. Frolic was hit twice
and Gartreil three times, all the bullets aimed directly at
their heads. With glacial coldness, Jeffrey placed their bodies in
(13:59):
the bathroom, one on top of the other, then lay
in weight to ambush the others. At five point forty
five pm, Scott Auerbach and Jason truss Witch arrived home,
accompanied by their friend Sean Hiltoonan. As each man entered
(14:19):
the apartment, they were picked off by Ferguson in an
offhanded way that was more suited to someone playing a
carnival shooting game with an air gun. Aurbach did not
die immediately and managed to crawl out of the apartment,
but didn't make it to the stairs. Ignoring Aurbach, the
(14:43):
murderous homeowner poured oil over the other four men, which
he had obtained from the pipe outside before sneaking in.
He set them alight and then ignited several more fires
around the apartment and the basement. The other tenants called
the emergency services and ran from the burning building. As
(15:09):
they fled, they found Scott Auerback hanging from the spiral
staircase in the glass atrium, covered with blood. They pulled
him to safety, but he was barely alive when first
responders descended on the scene and bundled him into an ambulance.
Just before he fell unconscious, he summoned every remaining shread
(15:32):
of energy to gasp out the words Ferguson did it.
He died minutes before arriving at the hospital, each of
the five young men had died from gunshot wounds to
the head, fired by twenty two caliber semi automatic pistol.
(15:54):
Ferguson had already slipped away from the scene and was
driving towards his father in law's condo in Hilton Head,
South Carolina. After a short visit, he spent the night
at a motel, then returned the rented for Tempo with
its second license plate remounted on the front of the car.
(16:16):
The adometer on the vehicle would become key evidence in
the quintuple homicide investigation, as he had driven almost two
thousand miles in the three day rental period. Forensic tests
would later find a charred piece of clothing inside belonging
to one of the victims, along with evidence the floormat
(16:38):
had been exposed to a petroleum based accelerant. Jeffrey Ferguson
was arrested at his home at Pinewood Acres Drive at
two pm on twentieth of April, initially on charges of
larceny and criminal lockout, which allowed him to be held
just long enough for Connecticut State Police to question him
(17:00):
and pick him up on a murder charge. At the trial,
the defense attorney claimed the facts were circumstantial and that
most of the physical evidence had gone up in smoke.
The gun was also never recovered, but the prosecution had motive,
opportunity and forensics on their side, along with testimony from
(17:22):
extenants Richard Marshall and Troy Harvey, who came forward to
tell the powerful stories of their frightening run ins with
the Nightmare Landlord. The state of Connecticut was in shock
at the senseless killing of five popular young men who
were just beginning their adult lives, and newspaper headlines called
(17:44):
the crime the worst mass murder in Connecticut's modern history.
Ferguson had no criminal record prior to the massacre, and
his acquaintances in Powe's Point were astounded by the news.
Local man Jay Wickens described him as a pretty good neighbor,
(18:06):
adding he's always been quiet. I've only talked to him
three times, but he's a nice guy. Sam Lapowski, who
lived opposite the home in Westport, Connecticut, where Ferguson grew
up as a child and had once served as his
scout leader, said he didn't get along in school. He
(18:27):
bullied everyone. He nevertheless remembered Ferguson as being a good
scout who later worked as a laborer in town before
getting married and moving to North Carolina. The ponytailed and
handcuffed landlord chose not to give a statement in defense
(18:49):
of his actions, instead reading out a letter from his wife,
carry which included lyrics from Celine Dion's pop ballad because
You Loved Me. He offered neither explanations nor apologies. On
eleventh of June nineteen ninety eight, Jeffrey Ferguson gave no
(19:10):
reaction as he was sentenced to life in prison. Psychologists
found no diagnosable mental illness and noted that it was
not a crime of passion arising from ungovernable rage, but
had been carefully planned, from the method of entry to
the apartment through to the lighting of fires to conceal
(19:30):
his actions. Mister Frolic, a retired mechanical engineer and father
of eight, choked back tears as he talked about his son.
I often got on him for the wrong reasons, he said,
But David had more friends than I ever had. He
(19:51):
was always up, always smiling. I'm sorry to say I
missed the things he did, and now he's gone on Wednesday,
seventh of May two thousand and three, fifty two year
old Jeffrey Kent Ferguson committed suicide in prison by wrapping
a ligature around his neck and asphyxiating himself. Whether this
(20:16):
was brought on by regret for methodically gunning down five
men in the prime of life eight years before, we
will never know. You've been listening to Precious Murder Map.
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving me a
comment or review. Your support really helps the show to
(20:36):
get noticed among all the other fantastic true crime podcasts
out there, and helps new listeners to find me as
an independent podcaster. I truly appreciate your support, and any
donations goes towards helping me research, write, and produce new
true crime episodes. You can also join me on Patreon.
(20:57):
I keep this really simple with just one tier, where
you can enjoy ad free access and a shout out
on an upcoming episode. Thank you for listening, and I'll
see you again next time.
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