Dark Downeast - The Disappearance of William "Billy" Smolinski Jr. (Connecticut)

Episode Date: September 19, 2024

For over 20 years, the Smolinski Family has been searching for their son and brother, Billy, who one afternoon in August of 2004 asked his neighbor to watch his dog and then was never seen again. The case is not without leads or suspects, but the biggest question of all has yet to be answered: Where is Billy? If you have information relating to the disappearance of Billy Smolinski Jr. please call the Waterbury Police Department at [phone]. View source material and photos for this episode at: darkdowneast.com/williambillysmolinskijrDark Downeast is an audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted by Kylie Low.Follow @darkdowneast on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTokTo suggest a case visit darkdowneast.com/submit-case

For over 20 years, the Smolenski family has been searching for their son and brother, Billy, who one afternoon in August of 2004 asked his neighbor to watch his dog and then was never seen again. The case is not without leads or suspects, but the biggest question of all has yet to be answered. Where is Billy? I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is the case of William Billy Smolenski Jr. on Dark Down East. It was around 5 p.m. on the evening of August 24, 2004, when 31-year-old Billy Smolenski Jr. left his neighbor's house on Hawley Street in Waterbury, Connecticut.

Bryn Mandel reports for The Republican American that Billy had stopped by to ask his neighbor a favor. He was heading up north for three days to go see about a car he was interested in buying and wanted to know if the neighbor could look after his dog while he was away. Billy's dog, a German Shepherd named Harley, was like a child to him. According to reporting by John Murray, who has covered this case extensively for the Waterbury Observer over the last 20 years, Billy got the dog with an ex-girlfriend, Mary. They'd dated for eight years,

and even though the two had broken up, they stayed close friends, and she and Billy both continued to care for Harley together. In fact, she had watched Harley while Billy was on vacation in Florida just the week before, but this time, Billy's neighbor agreed to take care of the dog. On the morning of August 25th, it was Mary who was first alerted that something weird was going on when she got a concerning call from Billy's neighbor. He explained that Billy asked him to

take care of Harley, but he couldn't find a key and Billy was apparently gone already and the dog was still inside Billy's house. This immediately struck Mary as odd. He definitely would not have left Harley behind unattended or taken off somewhere without letting his family know where he was going. So Mary called Billy's sister Paula to see if she knew where Billy had gone. But this was the first Paula had heard that Billy was going anywhere. She, too, got the sense that something was off. Paula called her parents, Janice, who went by Jan, and William, Bill, Sr., and they all went to check on Billy's house on Holly Street. Michelle Toshito-Sulo reports for the New Haven Register that when they pulled up to the house, Billy's mother, father, and sister immediately noticed that Billy's white Ford pickup truck was there, but it wasn't where Billy usually parked it.

It was down at the end of the driveway, almost blocking the entrance, not pulled up close to the house. It was a big red flag. Their first thought was that someone else had driven Billy's truck. His family checked on Harley and then wasted no time going straight to the Waterbury Police Department to report Billy missing. But when Jan, Bill, and Paula tried to get help from local police, they were told they had to wait before any report could be taken. Billy told his neighbor he'd be gone for three days, so until then, they couldn't report him missing. He'd probably come back just as he said he would,

and this would all be a misunderstanding. While the Smolenskis waited for that three-day mark, they tried finding Billy on their own. They talked to neighbors and friends and looked through his house to see if they could find any clues as to where he went. All they could find was a Burger King receipt in his trash can. It was time-stamped 2.59 p.m. on August 24th, the day he disappeared, which was a few hours before he stopped by his neighbor's house to ask about watching the dog. Jan and Paula went to Burger King to see if the security camera footage captured Billy there. Maybe he was with someone when he ordered his food.

But the footage from the 24th had already been overwritten by the time they got there. Finally, on August 27th, the Waterbury Police Department took a missing persons report for Billy Smolenski Jr. That was when the police investigation into his disappearance officially began. Waterbury PD issued a BOLO with Billy's name and description and then took a few preliminary investigative steps, like checking Billy's bank account and financial records for any activity. There were no transactions in the days since he had last had contact with anyone. Meanwhile, Billy's family amped up their own efforts and foot searches. Paula called everyone she could find in Billy's personal phone book, but no one had seen or heard from Billy since the 24th. Billy supposedly told his neighbor he was

going up north, so Paula called the only person she could think of that Billy might know up north, an old friend in New Hampshire. But he hadn't talked to Billy either. Dozens of volunteers joined his parents and sister to scour the banks and waters of the Naugatuck River and wooded areas near his house. According to a supplemental report for Waterbury Police Department case number 2004-071025, on August 31st, Billy's uncle was out searching the woods off Longmeadow Drive in Waterbury when he noticed a foul odor. It was a spot where Billy and his friends used to hang out and drink beer when they were younger. So Paula reported this to Waterbury PD, and detectives responded to the location to search for the source of the smell, but they didn't find anything that might be related to Billy's

disappearance. After checking the woods, though, reports show that the detectives stopped into Billy's house and spoke with his neighbor, who was one of the last known people to see and talk to Billy. The neighbor told police that, yes, Billy asked him to take care of his dog and that he said he'd be gone for three days, but Billy never left a key and the neighbor didn't know where Billy might be. However, the neighbor told the detectives something else. That evening when Billy stopped by, he shared with his neighbor that the vacation he just got back from hadn't gone so well. He and his girlfriend broke up. For about a year, Billy had been dating 51-year-old Madeline Gleason,

who worked as a school bus driver for a transportation company in Bethany, Connecticut. Hearing that the relationship ended just two days before his disappearance, detectives gave Madeline a call. It appears the conversation was brief. Madeline explained that Billy had broken up with her because he thought she was cheating on him. She also stated that she actually saw Billy on the morning of the 24th. He showed up at her house early in the morning and asked Madeline to get back together,

but she needed time to think, she said. She said when Billy left her house, he was, quote, a little depressed, end quote. So he was having relationship problems, and detectives also learned that Billy was recently laid off from his job as an apprentice for a heating and air conditioning company. Investigators considered the possibility that Billy could have taken off for some alone time, or even that he harmed himself, but his family strongly denied any suggestion that Billy was missing

because he wanted to be. Until they found Billy, though, every theory remained on the table. According to case file documents, on September 3rd, Waterbury PD executed a search warrant for Billy's home phone to review the call log for August 24th. Detectives found that among the calls Billy made that day, he dialed one number three consecutive times, twice within the same minute at 11.44 a.m. and a third call at 11.58 a.m. Those were the last calls Billy made from his landline the day he disappeared.

Police traced the phone number to a man all called by a fake name, Jacob. Investigators tried to contact Jacob that same day, September 3rd, leaving several messages for him to contact Waterbury PD, but they didn't hear back from him for over a week. When detectives finally received a call back from Jacob on September 13th, he agreed to come in for an interview. During that September 15th interview, the detective asked Jacob how he knew Billy Smolenski. He explained that his father was business partners with the owner of a transportation company where a mutual friend of theirs worked. That mutual friend was Madeline,

Billy's girlfriend, or I guess ex-girlfriend at that point. Jacob knew that Billy and Madeline had dated for about a year, but he said he didn't have any personal interaction with Billy. The detective asked Jacob if he ever had any trouble with Billy, and Jacob said no. But then the detective pressed him a little more, and Jacob finally admitted that he was having an affair with Madeline, and Billy wasn't happy about it. Jacob told the detective that he was hesitant to say anything because he was married, and he didn't want it to get back to his wife that he stepped out on their marriage. As the interview progressed, the detective broached the subject of phone calls that Billy made on the day he disappeared. Jacob said at first that he hadn't gotten any calls from Billy,

but then said he did receive a message from an unidentified man. The caller said, quote, you better watch your back at all times, end quote. Jacob told the detective that he still had the tape and agreed to turn it over to police the next day. When detectives reviewed the answering machine tape, they heard the same message that Jacob described. In an attempt to identify the caller, the detective contacted Billy's sister Paula, who confirmed that the voice was her brother Billy.

With that, the tape was retained as evidence in Billy's case. From the very first day of the official police investigation, Billy's family had pressed detectives to process his truck for fingerprints and other evidence. They were sure that Billy wouldn't have parked it at the end of the driveway, and if someone else had driven it as they suspected, their prints might still be there. According to Billy's family, they were told that it was too late

to do anything with the truck. But about two weeks later, a detective finally went through the cab, not to fingerprint it, but just to take a look around. Shoved deep behind the seat, the detective found Billy's wallet and keys. For Billy's family, it was even more proof

that Billy hadn't left on his own. Billy's mother, father, and sister continued their own awareness and search efforts for Billy's case. put up thousands of flyers and reward posters on telephone poles around Waterbury and surrounding communities that included Billy's photo and description, six feet tall, 200 pounds, blue eyes, and light brown hair in a crew cut. He had tattoos on his right forearm and left shoulder, and he may have been wearing blue jeans and a denim shirt when he was last seen. A few weeks later, after stacks of posters had been plastered on every telephone pole and bulletin board in the area, Billy's dad, Bill Sr., noticed that some of the posters he'd tacked up along Route 63, the main route leading into New Haven, were gone. Others were still partially tacked up, but Billy's photo was torn from the page and some had been defaced.

Who cares was scrawled in black ink over Billy's face. Bill swiftly replaced the posters, but the next day they were gone again. The Smolenskis reported the poster vandalism to police, but the officer said there really wasn't anything they could do about it. Frustrated with that response, Billy's family decided to camp out near some of the utility poles and waited for someone to come by and remove the posters. That evening, Billy's family saw someone ripping a poster down. It looked like it was Billy's ex-girlfriend, Madeline. The next night, the Smolenskis set up near the utility poles again, this time with a camera. They managed to get footage of one unidentified person

tearing down the recently placed posters. Though the person's face wasn't completely visible on tape, they'd also written down the license plate number of the car the person was driving. Billy's sister Paula turned the tape and the license plate info over to investigators the following day. When police looked up the registered owner, it came back to Billy's ex-girlfriend, Madeline Gleason. But again, police couldn't, or wouldn't, do anything about it. Despite their frustration, Billy's family kept putting up

the posters and someone kept taking them down. It didn't make sense to the Smolenskis. Even though they'd broken up, it seemed strange and concerning that someone, possibly Billy's former girlfriend, didn't want the posters to stay up. Jan, Bill, Paula, and other family members continued their efforts to find Billy and generate new information about his disappearance, even when things between them and Billy's ex-girlfriend escalated in the new year. On March 14, 2005, Madeline Gleason met with a Woodbridge police sergeant to file a stalking and harassment report against Billy Smolenski's mother, Jan, and his sister, Paula. She told the officers about Billy's disappearance and her relationship with him

and said she felt like his family was targeting her bus route with posters so that she had to see Billy's face every day. The Woodbridge police incident report states that the officer explained what's required to file a harassment and stalking charge and that there were no facts or circumstances that supported the charges. The posters were in many towns, not just along her bus route. While looking into the harassment claims, the Woodbridge police sergeant had called Waterbury police. The Waterbury detective on Billy's case at the time told him that they were, in fact, looking at Madeline as a suspect for Billy's disappearance. But if she wanted to clear her name, she could take a polygraph test. The Woodbridge officer later left a message for Madeline telling her

to contact Waterbury police to see about the lie detector exam. However, court records state that Madeline has never agreed to a polygraph on the advice of her counsel. Woodbridge PD closed the harassment and stalking case, seeing no criminal matter that would merit an arrest at that time. But the next month, on April 4th, 2005, Madeline was back at the police station, and this time Paula and Jan were there too. The volatile interaction between Billy's ex-girlfriend and his family members is documented in Woodbridge Police Reports. In her statement to police that day, Madeline claimed that Billy's family was harassing her and saturating every place she worked and hung out with missing persons posters. She also said that they were

videotaping her without her consent and showing up at her place of employment, which her boss and co-worker later confirmed. Madeline admitted to removing the posters because she felt they were too much, but ultimately, she said she didn't want to press charges. Madeline just wanted to be left alone. The Smolenski family received a warning from Woodbridge police. If this issue came up again, it would be grounds for arrest. A few weeks later, Jan Smolenski was arrested by Woodbridge police on charges of trespass in the first degree. Jan had allegedly hung up a missing persons poster on the property of Beecher School, which was part of Madeline's bus route. According to an arrest warrant application, Jan had been previously warned not to enter school property unless she had specific reason to be there.

But the charges against Jan were later dropped. Billy's family members have always maintained that they are just doing whatever they can to get answers. Madeline removing the posters they put up have caused them to view Madeline with a weary eye. They weren't sure if she had something to do with Billy's disappearance, but they suspected she might know more about what happened to him than what she's letting on. But almost a year into the investigation and search for Billy hadn't pointed to any evidence strong enough to arrest Madeline

or anyone else for that matter. Police and the Smolenskis continued pushing ahead with their own efforts to uncover the truth. According to case file documents, on August 3rd, 2005, two Waterbury police detectives met with Madeline Gleason for another, more in-depth interview. They asked about the timeline of her relationship with Billy and what caused their breakup. Madeline explained that she had known Billy for over a year and they'd met when they were both driving buses for the same company. They started out as friends, but it eventually turned into more than that. Madeline disclosed that she was seeing someone else while she was

dating Billy. She carried on an affair with Jacob, the married man. Madeline thought Billy knew or at least suspected that she was having an affair, but she didn't come clean until they were on that vacation together in Florida. She said they were sitting on the beach when her cell phone rang and Billy grabbed it to see who was calling. When she tried to get it back from him, they started fighting. Madeline said she was yelling for other people on the beach to call the police

because Billy wouldn't give her phone back, but the police didn't come and she never made a report of the incident. After that, she says Billy broke up with her, saying he didn't want to be with her if the relationship was going nowhere. She agreed, and their vacation ended abruptly after that. They got back from Florida on August 22nd, just two days before he disappeared.

Now, she'd already told police that that wasn't the last time she saw Billy. In this second interview, Madeline elaborated on her last interaction with Billy. She claimed that on August 24th, he showed up at her window perched at the top of a ladder and begged Madeline to take him back and move in with him. She says she told Billy she needed some time to think. Madeline said that Billy was upset when he left. Later that same day, she said, Madeline got a call from Jacob.

He told her that he'd received a message on his answering machine telling him to watch his back. She told police in her interview that she recognized the caller as Billy Smolenski. That was when she says she told Jacob that she'd been seeing Billy. During this interview, Madeline also told police that about five days after Billy disappeared, one of Jacob's friends got a call from someone

on a payphone in Hartford. The unidentified caller told the friend to tell Jacob to watch his back. Madeline didn't know who the friend was. She also said that she had received hang-up phone calls from a Rhode Island payphone only five days ago. Madeline said she already deleted the numbers from her caller ID, though. Madeline finally told the detective that she liked Billy, but she didn't want to, quote, babysit a 31-year-old who she said liked to drink and get in fights. Regardless, he was the one who broke up with her. The detective then brought up Madeline's son, Sean Karpiak. He passed away a few

months earlier in January of that year at age 27, reportedly due to a drug overdose. The detective asked if Sean had any problems with Billy but Madeline said simply that Sean didn't have a problem with Billy because she didn't have a problem with him. A few weeks after that interview the one year anniversary of Billy's disappearance came and went without an arrest and still no sign of where Billy might be. Billy's family kept putting up

posters, and by October of that year, they even paid for a billboard to be placed along Route 8 with a massive photo of Billy staring down every commuter who passed by. They hoped it would lead to a big break in his case, but months passed without anything. That changed, though, in June of 2006, when Waterbury Police followed up with a witness who called the Crimestoppers tip line, saying he had information about the disappearance of Billy Smolenski. The man reported that about two years earlier, sometime in October of 2004, he was at Dunkin' with a friend when he noticed Billy's poster taped up in the window.

He made a comment that it was too bad, and his friend replied that they will never find Billy. When the witness asked what his friend meant by that, the guy went on to allege that the son of Billy's ex-girlfriend, Sean Karpiak,

had killed Billy at Madeline's apartment after a fight broke out between Billy and Madeline. The friend claimed that Sean then called another guy and the two supposedly buried Billy at a construction site under a spot where concrete would be poured the next day. The witness said that he was in the construction business and Sean had been his employee at one point. The friend of his who told him this story at the Dunkin' that day

was close friends with Sean and the other man allegedly involved. The witness said he only thought to come forward with the information now almost two years later because he saw a news story about Billy a few nights before. I also have to wonder if the fact that Sean was now deceased played into his decision to come forward with the information now versus back in October 2004 when Sean was still alive, but that's just me thinking out loud. Anyway, the witness gave detectives an approximate location of the construction site where Billy was allegedly buried off Route 110 in the town of Shelton, Connecticut. According to reporting by Michelle Tachitosulo for the New Haven Register, multiple law enforcement agencies were on site for that search in Shelton, including local and

state police, as well as the FBI, who had been called in to assist the case about a year prior. Beginning on Monday, May 7th, 2007, investigators surveyed a property near Edgewood Avenue off Fort Hill Avenue, as well as near a bridge on Route 8. By the end of it, they'd excavated a driveway and brought in cadaver dogs to search the locations, but they didn't find anything related to Billy's case. That was just the first in a series of excavations and searches over the years. The following year, another major tip came in,

this time from someone who claimed he not only knew what happened to Billy and where he was now, but that he also helped get rid of his body. In 2008, investigators received a tip about a guy named Chad Hansen. The tipster alleged that Chad bragged about helping bury Billy Smolenski's body and said that police would never find him. When police interviewed Chad Hansen that same year, he seemingly confessed to all of it. According to court documents, Chad told police that he didn't kill Billy, but he did help Sean Karpiak bury his body in a big

open field on Bungay Road in Seymour. Directed by Chad Hansen's supposed admission of his involvement, on August 11, 2008, a major search and dig began in the town of Seymour, Connecticut. It centered on a 21-acre lot on Bungay Road, the site of a private farm and horse stable. Police clarified that the owner of the property was in no way involved with the case. The excavation focused on one large hole about six to eight feet deep in the open field. Local authorities and federal investigators also conducted a systematic search of the field with metal detectors and brought in ground-penetrating radar. However, police wouldn't say if they found anything on the property as the search came to a close. All investigators would disclose was that

the site hadn't yet been ruled out as a location connected to Billy's disappearance. According to Billy's family, they were in contact with FBI agents and other investigators, and their impression was that police were pretty confident that Billy's remains were at the Bungay Road site, and that they were on the trail of the person or persons involved with his disappearance and now presumed death. The very next month, searching in Seymour picked up again, but this time at a private home about four miles away from the field. On September 19th, 2008, police arrived at a home on Nichols Street. It was reportedly the former residence of Sean Karpiak and his family. The residents of the Nichols Street

house at the time of the search were not involved with the case at all. What police found at the house and in the field, if anything at all, is unclear. But it's possible that they were never going to find anything at all because after the search on Bungay Road concluded, investigators sat down for another interview with Chad Hansen. His story had suddenly changed. He admitted to lying and said he didn't really know where Billy's body was buried. Despite proving himself to be an unreliable witness, it wouldn't be the last time police acted on information from Chad Hansen. In 2010, Chad gave police a new place to search. He said that Billy was actually buried in Nogatuck State Forest, which is about 10 miles away from the false location he first told police to search.

Again, investigators came up empty-handed. And again, Chad admitted he lied. Chad Hansen was later charged with second-degree making a false statement and interfering with a police officer. In the arrest warrant, Chad is named as a suspect in Billy's disappearance. He was convicted in 2011 and received a 20-month sentence. While Chad Hansen was leading police on a wild goose chase and wasting precious time and investigative resources, police also searched somewhere else for clues to Billy Smolenski's disappearance. For the first time since he disappeared four years earlier, police analyzed Billy's truck for forensic evidence,

things like fingerprints, hair, DNA, and fibers. From day one, Billy's family had a gut feeling the truck could hold some clues, since it wasn't parked in its usual spot. But they say their concerns were dismissed. They decided to keep the truck in storage, hoping it would one day be checked. But it seems like a big miss not to process his car for evidence right off the bat. because even if it was stored in the best of conditions, the chain of custody was no doubt compromised. Connecticut State Police only said that recent interviews had directed them to search the truck now and didn't have any further comment

on why it hadn't been analyzed before. I'm reluctant to say better late than never, but yeah, I guess it's good it happened eventually. In April of 2009, investigators disclosed that they were able to obtain DNA, hair, fingerprints, and palm prints from Billy's truck, but they wouldn't say if they found any blood. Now, finding hair and fingerprints is expected, but the real answer would come if those samples could be matched to any known individuals associated with the case. Comparing prints was a manual process at that time that was expected to take weeks or even months. So again, the Smolenskis waited on law enforcement while they did whatever they could to further their own search,

including getting major national coverage on a TV show. In February of 2010, Billy Smolenski's case was featured in an episode of Investigation Discovery's television series, Disappeared. The coverage resulted in an influx of tips that directed additional searches by both police and Billy's family. That summer, a volunteer group of cadaver dogs spent hours searching locations in Seymour. During that search, one of the canines located a sweatshirt. Kayla Torres reports for the Connecticut Post that the sweatshirt was considered possible evidence in Billy's case, but I struggled to find any further information about this discovery. A month later, as the six-year anniversary of Billy's disappearance approached, the Smolenski family requested either a state or federal grand jury probe into the case

in hopes of compelling certain witnesses to testify under oath. However, after a year of pushing for a grand jury, the requests were denied in August of 2011. A few months after the grand jury requests were denied, police received a tip from a woman in Shelton who said that after seeing the Disappeared episode about Billie's disappearance, her memory was jogged all the way back to a night in the summer of 2004. She remembered seeing a red car and a white truck being driven into the woods behind her house off Wigwam Road. The truck had distinctive headlights and a flat front grille.

It looked a lot like Billy's truck that was shown in the TV show. The incident stuck out in the woman's mind because although she was used to hearing and seeing ATVs cutting through the forest, to see a car and truck not built for that terrain was odd. When police finally came out to take her statement and search the area, they found bones that later turned out to be animal bones, but nothing else that might be related to Billy's disappearance. However, Billy's family did their own search of the location and reportedly found a fire pit and another pile of rocks that seemed odd to them. The Smolenskis felt that the spot was deserving of a closer look.

However, investigators seemed to be focused on a totally different wooded area at that time. Remember Chad Hansen? Well, surprise, surprise, he had come up with a new location for police to search for Billy's remains. Even though he admitted to lying about the other locations and had since been convicted of giving a false report and other crimes just a few months earlier, he remained a suspect in Billy's disappearance, and so police weren't about to dismiss what Chad had to say. Anything could be the truth, or even a shred of the truth. Beginning October 7, 2011, and continuing for about a 10-day stretch,

investigators scoured an area near Prokop and Woodruff Hill Roads in Oxford, Connecticut. According to court documents, Chad again said he helped Sean Karpiak bury a rolled-up carpet covered with lime, but he said he didn't realize at the time that there was a body inside the rug. He said he assumed it was, though, and, quote, he'll never forget the smell of blood, end quote. Once again, the search in Oxford was fruitless. When police sat down with Chad following the unsuccessful search, he changed his story again. He said he actually did know that Billy was inside the rug they buried, and he knew for a fact that Sean Karpiak

killed Billy with a 16-ounce hammer. It's unclear if he recanted his statements about the Oxford location, though. Even still, after that, Chad received new charges for interfering with an officer, second-degree false statement, and making a false report concerning injury or death. This time, the state was also interested in recouping $100,000 in costs associated with the searches based on Chad's lies. In January 2013, Chad took a deal and pleaded guilty to one count of making a false statement in exchange for a shorter four-and-a-half-year prison sentence versus the seven-year sentence he faced had he gone to trial. As the years went on and the Smolenskis looked for other avenues to bring Billy home, they turned to private investigator Todd Lovejoy, who happened to be a former Waterbury police

detective. Todd helped the Smolenskis field tips and dig deep into the case independently of local state and federal authorities. According to Pam McLaughlin's reporting for the New Haven Register, in 2014, the Smolenskis received a tip through the prison pipeline that Billy was buried inside a car and another tip that he was buried in a heavily wooded but public area in Beacon Falls. The Smolenskis themselves met with the tipster before deciding that the information was credible enough to warrant a search. Alongside a team of volunteer searchers and cadaver dogs,

the Smolenskis first searched in the yard of a house where a car was believed to be buried. However, the search dog did not signal there. So, the team then went to the other location, the heavily wooded public area. This time, the dog's keen senses were alerted to something. The dog sniffed his way to a spot near a body of water and sat and barked, signaling that he had a scent. The dog then entered the water, swam around an area that was bubbling, and eventually came back when called by his handler. A second dog brought into the area also signaled near the same spot as the first. The first dog returned for another search and signaled three more times in the same spot in a triangle pattern. The pup then looked up into the trees that were blowing in the wind.

The breeze was coming from the direction of the location first indicated by the tipster. Now, the area had supposed mob connections and there could have been other bodies there at any point, and search dogs can also signal dried blood from an innocuous cut. Nevertheless, the Smolenskis reported the location to police. They hoped that investigators would jump on the lead, but after 10 weeks, the spot where the dogs had alerted still hadn't been searched by law enforcement. John Murray reports for the Waterbury Observer that just the year before this search, the relationship between Billy's family and Waterbury police had deteriorated. Communication pretty much came to a halt, and for about five years, there was little or no

contact between the family of the missing man and the investigators tasked with finding out what happened to him. The journalist John Murray hoped to re-engage police and reopen the line of communication with Billy's family when in 2018, he prepared a 24-page independently researched and investigated report of what he believed happened to Billy and the individuals involved. His theory centered on the same suspects that have been identified all along, Madeline Gleason's late son, Sean Karpiak, and Chad Hansen, as well as a third man. It took several years, but police eventually took action on a lead related to conclusions John Murray developed

as part of his reporting. In November 2021, Waterbury PD excavated the driveway of a home in Shelton, Connecticut. The house was reportedly the site of several searches throughout the years, all unsuccessful in locating Billy's remains. The 2021 search was more of the same. No Billy. Now, two decades later, the loose ends in Billy's case abound. The DNA and fingerprints in his truck, the sweatshirt found in the woods,

cadaver dogs signaling in more than one location, false statements by a suspect, that married man who received a threatening voicemail from Billy on the day he disappeared, and more. But the biggest of them all, where is Billy? Wherever he is will undoubtedly unlock answers as to what happened and who is responsible. Shelton Police Detective Ben Traubke has said in previous reporting that Billy's breakup with Madeline Gleason is a central part of the investigation and that police believe she has more information to share regarding the case.

He also said, quote, It is still a strong theory that Sean Karpiak was involved, end quote. I need to tell you about two very important things that were going on simultaneous to the search for Billy and the investigation into his disappearance. First, in 2005, Madeline Gleason sued Jan Smolenski and her daughter Paula for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress stemming from the missing persons posters they put up along her bus route and other locations.

The case dragged out for years, but the court eventually ruled in Madeline's favor in the original trial and then again on appeal, finding that Jan and Paula did defame and cause emotional distress. The appellate court ruling stated in part, quote, end quote. Jan and Paula were ordered to pay Madeline over $50,000, but that wasn't the end of the case. With the help of a pro bono lawyer, Jan and Paula took their appeal all the way to the Connecticut Supreme Court, claiming First Amendment free speech rights, among other things. In 2015, the state Supreme Court overturned the lower court's ruling.

The opinion reads in part, quote, We conclude that a new trial is required because the trial court's findings on the plaintiff's claims of defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress did not consider, and are not consistent with, the various limitations placed on these torts by the First Amendment, end quote. As far as I can tell, there has not yet been a new trial, and the case may have been dropped at this point. The other major thing that was happening while the investigation continued was Jan Smolenski and the rest of Billy's family were becoming powerful advocates for other missing people and their families.

From the beginning, the Smolenskis' struggle to find Billy highlighted the gaps and inefficiencies in the existing systems for handling missing persons cases, which they aimed to change through legislation. In 2022, President Joe Biden signed Billy's Law, formerly called the Help Find the Missing Act. The law enhances the coordination of missing persons databases and raises awareness among law enforcement and families about how to update information and track developments. It connects the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, NAMIS, with the FBI's National Crime Information Center, NCIC, creating more comprehensive databases and streamlining the reporting process. Billy's law also mandates that missing children be reported to NamUs and requires the Department of Justice to issue guidelines and best practices for handling such cases. Billy's Law had bipartisan support,

and its passage is seen as a significant improvement in the missing persons reporting process, providing hope and better resources to families searching for their loved ones. On a Facebook page created by his family called Justice for Billy, his mother shares updates on the case alongside reflections of her son's life and the moments they've missed out on through the years. Jan writes that her son Billy was a family man, always the first to holiday gatherings and last to leave with a plate of leftovers in hand. Billy adored his baby sister Paula from the moment he saw her, and he was an outdoorsman. Hunting, fishing, snowmobiling, and even horseback riding were some of his favorite pastimes.

Billy's case remains unsolved, and his family continues to search for him, their priority is to bring Billy home. In July of 2010, Jan told Kayla Torres for the Connecticut Post that when that finally happens, quote, I'm going to cremate him and put him in the casket with me when I die. I've worked too hard. I'm not letting him go anymore. End quote. If you have information relating to the disappearance of Billy Smolenski Jr., please call the Waterbury Police Department at 203-574-6941. Next week is an off week for Dark Down East, but I'll be back the following Thursday with a new episode. Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. You can find all source material for this case at darkdowneast.com.

Be sure to follow the show on Instagram at darkdowneast. This platform is for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones and for those who are still searching for answers. I'm not about to let those names or their stories get lost with time. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is Dark Down East. Dark Down East is a production of Kylie Media and Audiocheck. So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?