Every Town - Is A SERIAL KILLER Loose In New England?

Episode Date: June 6, 2025

There’s a serial killer on the loose in New England, at least that’s what many fear is happening. More specifically this is all going down in the states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. 👀 Watch This Episode On Youtube: ⁠https://youtu.be/4cm6WLB7700 👁 Check out our movie AN ANGRY BOY for FREE! ⁠https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvtlOlODQ8g&t=5238s⁠ ⁠https://tubitv.com/movies/100029672/an-angry-boy⁠ International & Other Ways To Watch: ⁠https://www.anangryboy.com/⁠ 💀 MERCH: ⁠https://scary-mysteries.teemill.com/⁠ 💀 Free 7 Day Trail on Exclusive Episodes, Podcasts & Perks! ⁠https://www.patreon.com/scarymysteries⁠   🎧 Our Other Podcast Scary Mysteries: ⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/3ZooEZMoZ421WdsOVJhVkT⁠ 👁 X: ⁠https://x.com/ScaryMysteries1⁠ 👁Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/andrew.fitzg⁠ 👁 TikTok: ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewfitzgerald⁠ 👁Facebook: ⁠https://www.facebook.com/scarymysteriesofficial⁠ 👁 X: ⁠https://x.com/ScaryMysteries1⁠   🗣 Business Inquiries, questions and comments hit us up at ⁠[e-mail]⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are you ready to dive into the unknown? Join me, Peyton Moreland, on Into the Dark, the true crime podcast from Ono Media with a hint of horror and mystery. Each week, I dive into a different case, breaking down the facts, and pondering the age-old question, why do people do what they do? Now, sometimes the answer isn't so clear, and that's why I'll also explore conspiracy theories, hauntings, and all things spooky. From the Green River Killer to the Mothman incident, we will unravel all of the questions that keep us up at night. So don't miss out. Subscribe now on your favorite podcast platform.

New episodes drop every Wednesday. Into the dark, where true crime meets the eerie unknown. Every town has a dark side. There's a serial killer on the loose in New England. At least that's what many fear is happening. And more specifically, this is all going down in the states of Massachusetts. roads, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, where ten bodies have been discovered in just two months' time. And social media is full of their theories. Police departments are, for the most part, denying

any connections, and the grieving families, while they're all caught in the crossfire. The pattern is unsettling. Bodies appearing in wooded areas near waterways, along quiet paths where people once felt safe, and they're all within driving distance of one another. which is why everyone's saying the same thing. There's a killer out there right now at this very moment, but is it true? Hey guys, it's Andrew. Welcome to another episode of EveryTenmore today.

We're diving into what might be the beginning or middle of something terrifying. A pattern hiding in plain sight, and if it's real, it means there's a killer out there. And if they aren't caught, that means they're not finished yet. So let's head on over to the East Coast and figure out if there really is a serial killer in New England. So how exactly does the idea of a serial killer stalking the New England area, or any place for that matter, even get started? Well, in this particular case, you don't have to go back too far because it all began on March 6th of 2025. A hunter that day was out trekking through the woods in America's hometown of Plymouth, Massachusetts, when something caught his eye. It stands out among the fallen leaves, and as he gets closer, realizes it's actually a human skull.

And whether it impartially buried, it's been there for quite a long time. Long enough, at least, that when investigators get on the scene, they can't tell by looking at it if it was a man or a woman. In that very same day, in about 170 miles south from where the skull was found, the body of 35-year-old Paige Fanning gets pulled out of the Norwalk River in Connecticut. She'd only been reported missing the day before. Her clothes and personal stuff was just sitting there abandoned on the riverbank, like she'd walked away from her life and into that water. Now, maybe these are just two sad, unrelated stories.

And really, there's nothing so far to connect them. At least that's what everyone thought at first, but that's before more bodies started popping up. On March 19th, another person is discovered, and this time stuffed in a suitcase and left near a cemetery and, Rotten, Connecticut, which, if you're looking at a map, sits in between where the first two bodies were found. This one was a woman, somewhere between 40 and 60 years old.

Tough to know for sure, as she had been there for a few weeks before anyone found her. The very next day, they find Denise Leary in New Haven. Just the past 15 minutes, we have learned that police have now identified the woman whose Remains were found last Thursday in a wooded area on Rock Creek Road in New Haven. This woman is identified as 59-year-old Denise Leary. Police have been searching for Denise Leary since she was reported missing by family members back in late September. According to investigators, her remains were in an advanced state of decay. The cause of death has not yet been determined.

That's four bodies in just two weeks. Four bodies, with an easy driving distance of one of the ones. another. As a baseline, both Connecticut and Massachusetts have around 145 homicides that happen in their states each and every year. Human remains, mostly female, have been found in New Haven, Connecticut, Norwalk, Groton, and Killingly, Foster, Rhode Island, Framingham, Plymouth, and now Springfield. A lot of those are domestic altercations where a friend or lover loses their cool and kills a person they know. They're typically solved relatively fast, so For this amount of bodies to be popping up so quickly under these circumstances is a bit alarming.

And it just keeps going. March 26, Michelle Romano's body turns up and Foster Rhode Island. State Police remaining tight-lipped tonight about the investigation, but you can see they're still going in and out of the home behind me on Hazard Avenue, trying to pin down what exactly happened to Michelle Romano. Her remains discovered in a vacant lot along Route 14 in Foster last. Last week, investigators are now working to figure out how they got there and who's responsible. And then April hits, and it's like a dam breaks. April 9th, human remains near railroad tracks in Killingly, Connecticut.

They haven't released the name or age or gender, but, get this. It was found just seven miles away from where they discovered, Romano. Out of all the square miles that New England takes up, that's amazingly close by to one another, don't you think? The following day, firefighters, battling a brushfire, stumbled across human remains near the Massachusetts Turnpike in Framingham. They said it had been there for several months. They wouldn't have found it had it not been for the blaze. April 20th, a boater spots a body floating in the Seaconkunk River in Rhode Island.

And two days after that, 45-year-old Megan Meredith is discovered near a bike trail in Springfield, Massachusetts. A woman who we now know. to be Megan Meredith was found unresponsive in the area of Riverfront Park on Tuesday morning. She was unresponsive when she was found and later died. They're calling that one a homicide. April 25th, Samuel Stoval, a 51-year-old homeless man found in the Mill River in Taunton. Two days later, another body in the water near Ferry Park in Rocky Hill, Connecticut, gets pulled out. And she was 72-year-old Mary Colasano, who had the...

been missing since March 30th, though no other details about her death have been given to the public. And so, to answer the question posed earlier, how does the idea of a serial killer roaming the streets get started? Well, this is how. A whole lot of bodies and not a ton of transparency from the authorities. And maybe they don't know everything just yet, or they don't think there's a serial killer on the loose.

Or maybe they do think there is one, but don't want to panic the public. Well, it's a little too late for that. With ten bodies in less than two months in three neighboring states, well, people are going to start asking, what the hell is going on in New England? Murmurs on Reddit started, then a few posts on Twitter, and then exploded. A Facebook group popped up, dedicated to the New England serial killer. Within days, it had 4,000 members, then 17,000.

Now, as of the making of this, over 70,000 people, all convinced and or interested to know if there is a perpetrator stalking the region. On TikTok, videos on the subject rack up millions of views, just like that. Some connect these deaths to the Smiley Face killer theory. Others see parallels to the Connecticut River Valley killer from the 70s and 80s. When seven women were killed in New Hampshire and Vermont, that perpetrator was never caught. Regardless of what actually is going down, the fear has become real and tangible. Women across three states have started posting that they're afraid to hike alone.

And some say they're carrying multiple knives when they go out. Yet the police are telling everyone not to worry. But shouldn't they? So far, law enforcement's response has been consistent, and there's nothing to see here, just a string of unrelated tragedies. Period. End of story. When asked about Paige Fanon, Norrock police brushed away any theory of,

about foul play. Nothing suspicious about her death, they insist. And definitely no connection to any other cases or supposed killer. They've closed the book on it. New Haven authorities spent considerable time explaining away Denise Leary's situation. The medical examiner couldn't pinpoint exactly what killed her, but found no signs of violence or trauma on her body. They keep bringing up her history of mental health issues. A gentle way of suggesting she might have to be have done this to herself in some way, shape, or form. Maybe it was intentional. Maybe it was exposure.

Either way, they're certain it wasn't murder. After finding Megan Meredith, the Hamden District Attorney felt compelled to address the growing online chatter directly. And he practically begged people to stop spreading unfounded theories. In his view, social media was creating fear and confusion that has no basis in reality and could actively interfere with legitimate. legitimate investigations. For Samuel Stoval, officials couldn't have been more straightforward. Just a homeless man who died of natural causes who wasn't discovered for a while.

A sad but common occurrence, not part of some sinister plan. In fact, unhoused people pass away all the time, and others overdose, which could be the cause of some of these deaths. Basically, whenever that happens, nobody seems to care. It's only when there's some sort of of drummed up hysteria that people start to take notice, and then they all get lumped together. Some cases have actually led to arrest and clear explanations. Remember that body in the suitcase near the cemetery in Groton? They charged someone who knew the victim personally, and classic crime of passion or opportunity.

Nothing like the methodical, stranger-targeted pattern you'd expect from a serial predator. But still, the paranoia reached such heights that Narragansett Road, Island police found themselves combing a beach with cadaver dogs after viral posts claimed multiple bodies were buried there. And they brought in serious resources, specialized dogs, officers, even the FBI. It cost a lot of money, but the lead was credible enough where it couldn't simply be ignored, and so they went looking and found absolutely nothing. Detective Sergeant Kuzman later revealed what most level-headed observers suspected.

The whole beach search was triggered by someone's sick idea of a joke. The supposed confession post contained hidden references to internet memes and literally spelled out hoax in the first letters of each paragraph. Yet, it still sent law enforcement on a wild goose chase. So from the authorities' perspective, what we're witnessing isn't a serial killer case at all. It's a perfect storm of coincidental deaths amplified by the echo chamber, social media, into something far more sinister than the evidence actually supports. A digital wildfire that's consuming rational thought and spreading panic, if you will. But still, these cases are very fresh and new,

and they take place in multiple states, so each investigation is still gathering the facts on their own cases. That means that talking to one another about all the specifics to really see if there is a serial killer at work hasn't fully happened yet, and will take time. Not everyone's convinced this isn't the work of a single sadistic individual, not even some experts. And Ted Williams is an attorney and former Washington, D.C. homicide detective. When he looks at these cases, he sees something concerning.

And he told Fox News, anytime you find 10 bodies in any geographical location, it is very concerning to law enforcement. The big question that law enforcement has, though, when you find 10 bodies like this, is to try to show some kind of a nexus between these various areas in which these bodies have been found. Williams doesn't say there's definitely a serial killer, but he doesn't dismiss it either. In fact, he suggests law enforcement agencies are probably talking about this very possibility behind closed doors. I would absolutely have to believe that in the New England corridor, where these bodies have come up, that there is communication between law enforcement agencies at these various venues and these various locations where bodies have been found to try to show if there is an actual nexus between the bodies and a specific, should we say, serial killer.

And Peter Valentine, who teaches forensic science at the University of New Haven, points to a critical issue that might be flying under the radar as well. He says, There's some interesting breakdowns and communication that occur over state lines over jurisdictional lanes. That means the two cities that aren't all that far apart from each other had similar situations and they didn't even realize it.

And historically, that's the thing about catching serial killers. It's tough when they cross borders. It's happened before when different police departments don't talk to one another. And that's why the FBI created their violence Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, V-CAP, a national database specifically designed to spot connections between violent crimes that might otherwise seem unrelated, but that's still a work in progress.

And so maybe, just maybe, the system that's supposed to see these patterns is exactly the system that might miss them. If that's the case, it wouldn't be the first time it's happened. Let me take you back to the summer of 1982 in the Green River in Washington State. A young boy there is playing by the water. It makes a horrifying discovery. A woman's body. Then another and another.

By the end of that summer, five women had been found in or near the river. The Green River Task Force was formed, and they had a profile and suspects. They interviewed a quiet, unassuming painter named Gary Ridgeway in 1984. He took a polygraph and passed it, and so they let him go. While they were still looking for connections, well Ridgeway kept right on killing. One victim after another, women vanishing from street corners and truck stops in the edges of society. And bodies turning up in wooded areas near waterways along quiet paths. Sound familiar?

It took nearly 20 years in revolutionary DNA technology to finally catch the Green River killer. By then, he'd murdered at least 49 women, possibly more than. more than 70 by his own admission. And for two decades, law enforcement had the killer in their grasp, even interviewed him, but couldn't connect the dots until it was too late for dozens of victims. We had a very strong circumstantial case against Gary Ridgeway in 1987. What we didn't have was any physical evidence to substantiate the circumstances that we had. Now, had this technology been available to us in 1987,

death. I'm quite certain that based on that paste fear evidence and the circumstantial evidence that we had, I'm certainly we would have had an argument for taking this case to a prosecutor for charges. And this wasn't some remote failure. This happened in our lifetime many times, and it's bound to happen again. And drive about an hour south of where our New England serial killer story started, and you'll hit New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Between 1988 and 89, nine women disappeared from its streets, and their bodies started turning up along the highways around the city. The press called him the highway killer. The New Bedford Highway killing case is one of the biggest investigations in Massachusetts history. More than 35 years later, we still don't know the serial killer's identity. But as the brother, one of the victims told me, people are still talking and tips are still flowing.

All the victims shared similarities. They struggled with addiction, were involved in sex work. They were vulnerable, a classic predator's pattern. That killer was never caught, and those families still waiting for justice nearly four decades later. Even closer to today's story is the Connecticut River Valley killer. As mentioned between 1978 and 88, seven women were stabbed to death. Their bodies were discovered in New Hampshire and Vermont, right across state lines that are close to the center of our current mystery.

The police suspected a man named Michael Nicolao for years. He lived in the area during the killings, moved away when they stopped, and... New Year's Eve, 2005, the SWAT team moves in on this West Tampa home. This man holds his wife and stepdaughter hostage. But as they close in on the house, Michael Nicolao opens fire, turning the gun on his wife, stepdaughter. and then himself. But they never collected enough evidence to conclusively tie him to the earlier murders.

That case officially remains unsolved. And who could forget Ted Bundy? He could be the guy next door. Your fiancé, your husband, your boyfriend, your lover. And then that evening, by his own determination, at his own discretion, transformed himself into perhaps the most diabolical killer we'd ever know. And he murdered across Washington, Utah, Colorado, and Florida, exploiting the exact same jurisdictional gaps we're talking about today. In different states, different police departments, different databases.

It took years to realize they were all hunting the same exact man. And this is the historical weight people are carrying when they look at these New England deaths. This nagging feeling that maybe we've all seen this movie before, that's because we have. have. While authorities assure us, there's nothing to see, patterns are being missed, connections overlooked, and dots waiting to be connected. The social media sleuth armchair detectives might be jumping to conclusions. They might be seeing monsters in the shadows, but when they fear something being missed in

these deaths, they're just drawing on a documented history of cases where the system failed, where killers exploited the gaps. And who can blame them? Even with the official denials, some aspects of these cases make you wonder. At first, there's the sheer number, 10 bodies in less than two months. That's a lot, more than usual, so hard to ignore. Second, there are similarities in the discovery locations. Woods, water, paths, places just off the beaten track, hidden, but not too hidden,

like someone wanted the bodies to be found eventually. Third, not all the deaths have been explained. Sure, police say some aren't suspicious, but others still under investigation. And causes of death not released, questions unanswered. And fourth, most of the victims were women. Not all, there's Samuel Stoval and another unidentified man, but predominantly women. That fits a pattern we've seen before in serial killer cases. Though the ages do vary pretty widely.

which is not the norm when it comes to killers. And typically they target the same type of person. And finally, there's that question of communication between police departments. Are they actually sharing information effectively across state lines? Or is each case being investigated in isolation? Missing potential connections that only become visible when you step back and look at the bigger picture? We have no way to answer that one. But what if we're all wrong?

This thing blew up so fast because of social media, but is it really healthy for us to be playing detective from behind a screen? Jennifer Mitchell started a Facebook group back in 2020. She was concerned about young men found dead in Boston's waters, what some called the Smileyface Killings. And for years, this group was quiet, a few posts a day, manageable. And then came these recent deaths. Suddenly her group doubled in size. She and her moderators were drowning in content over 60 posts per day. Some helpful, many not.

And she explained, and people will share people's license plates, pictures of their faces, accused them of being a serial killer. And the group that started as a space for discussion had morphed into something else now, an investigation with no rules, no oversight, no accountability. It's the internet, baby, and people are going to do what they want. That Narragansett beach search shows just how real the consequences can get.

And police diverted resources, actual human beings with actual jobs protecting the public, to search a beach because of posts in a Facebook group, posts that turned out to be someone's idea of a joke. Meanwhile, families, like the Romano's, feel victimized all over again. As Lorne Malloy put it, victims' families are inunders. these groups, and they're seeing the things that are posted, and these are their loved ones. It's a TikTok to you, but it's somebody else's mother or sister or daughter, wife, friend. And that puts us in a really tight spot. And so then, right now it's May of 2025, and we're still in the thick of it all. Police maintain there's no connection, no serial killer

at the moment, but online the theories multiply daily. New Facebook posts, new TikTok, new Reddit threads connecting these deaths to historical cases or developing fresh theories about who might be responsible. On both sides, the investigations continue, of course. In the meantime, residents remain vigilant. Authorities keep on working and families mourn their losses, all while the conversation around what's really happening in New England grows louder by the day. Are these deaths connected by something darker than coincidence or not? Whatever the answer is, I truly hope we won't discover it too late.

Let me know what your theories are. Remember to stay safe out there. So that's going to do it for this week's episode of Everytown. I hope you all enjoyed it. If you like this type of work we do and you want more, check out some of the links down in the description. More podcasts, more videos to go through, merch, and our movie and Angry Boy is available.

I appreciate you all very much. Thanks for tuning in. Remember to come back next week for another episode of every town filled with scary, strange and mysterious stories because you never know maybe your town will be next. Get your passion in a new

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