Police identify Enfield homicide victim
Aug. 11—ENFIELD — The man found dead in the gazebo on the Town Green in the predawn hours of Wednesday was Christopher Kennedy, a 55-year-old homeless man, Enfield police Lt. Willie Pedemonti said.
Pedemonti said Wednesday that no arrest had been made in the case, which police Chief Alaric Fox has said he is comfortable calling a homicide. The Enfield Police Department's online arrest log today also showed no arrest in the homicide.
But police did make an arrest in an incident that occurred during their investigation of the homicide, Pedemonti said. He said a man was charged with assaulting a police officer who was checking the Windsor Locks Canal State Park as part of the homicide investigation.
The online arrest log identifies the assault suspect as John Narducci, 53, of 12 Elm St. in Enfield. He was held overnight on $1 million bond and was to appear today in Hartford Superior Court.
Narducci has an extensive and violent criminal record.
He pleaded guilty in 1999 in U.S. District Court in Hartford to four bank robberies, three committed in Connecticut and one in Vermont, online federal court records show.
Judge Christopher F. Droney concluded that Narducci was a career offender as defined in federal sentencing guidelines and sentenced him to 151 months, just over 12 1/2 years, in prison.
Narducci subsequently filed a motion challenging the career-offender designation and other aspects of his sentencing. In denying the motion, Droney recited part of his record, which includes convictions in 1990 and 1992 for assaults on public safety personnel and three convictions in those same two years for possessing weapons in correctional institutions.
Online U.S. Bureau of Prisons records show that Narducci was released from federal custody in June 2015.
As to the Enfield homicide, Fox said a pedestrian walking through the Town Green around 2:40 a.m. Wednesday noticed a body in the gazebo. The person backed away from the area and called 911.
Upon arrival, officers confirmed that the body of a deceased adult man was in the gazebo, Fox said. He couldn't provide specific information about the man's injuries because it could compromise the investigation.
Fox said state police, including members of the major crime squad, were on scene Wednesday helping with the investigation, along with a police dog and its handler.
He said police had a couple of leads they would be following.
Town Manager Ellen Zoppo-Sassu said Wednesday that the situation was "very unfortunate," adding that she has found that "Enfield is a very passionate community" and residents and town employees know members of the homeless community by name.
"He was a well-known personality," she said of the victim, later identified as Kennedy. "In fact, I heard it from the homeless community this morning; they already knew who it was. The word spreads quickly."
"This is not just another homeless death; it's someone's son, sibling, friend, and we have to not be desensitized to the fact that we have some social safety holes," she said, adding that mental health, substance abuse, and homelessness are often interconnected.
"It's a common occurrence" for homeless people to sleep at the gazebo near Town Hall, Zoppo-Sassu said. "What's not common is that someone is attacked while doing so."
Mayor Bob Cressotti sought to assure residents that downtown Enfield is safe and that the homicide was "an isolated incident."
"Public safety is number one, and we're making sure that everything is safe," he said.
Cressotti said that there haven't been major complaints in the Town Hall area of Enfield, and that the incident appeared to him to be random.
As of 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, state and local police were still on the scene of the homicide.
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Journal Inquirer Staff Writers Eric Bedner, Matthew P. Knox, and Alex Wood contributed to this report
