Pod Insights Dark Downeast ANNOUNCING: Dark Valley About this episode Jane Boroski was seven months pregnant when she was stabbed 27 times by an unknown man. Miraculously, she survived. But Jane later finds out she is the only survivor of a serial killer who prowled the Connecticut River Valley in the 1980s and killed at least 8 women before her. Now, she's here to speak for the dead.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Kylie Low? Every case starts somewhere. A small town, a missing persons report, a family asking the same questions over and over. But sometimes a story reaches beyond its own community. Its impact extends further, calling for more attention, more conversation, and a wider audience. That's what Crime Junkie does every Monday. Ashley Flowers and Brett Praywat cover the cases you can't stop thinking about, from unsolved murders to missing people to investigations that still need answers. Because every new person who hears the story is another chance to uncover the truth. Listen to Crime Junkie every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts. Hey Dark Down Easters.
0:44 Kylie Low? I know that if you're here, you are ready to hear the untold stories of New England. And if you've listened to Dark Down East for long, then you know how important it is to me to center these stories on the people at the heart of them. Their families, their communities, their lives. That's why I want to introduce you to another series I know you'll connect with as much as I have. It's called Dark Valley. Like Dark Down East, Dark Valley takes place right in my home of New England. And for this series, the focus is on the borderlands of Vermont and New Hampshire, where host Jennifer Amell takes you deep into a case that deserves to be heard. It's thoughtful, human-centered storytelling that never loses sight of the people behind the headlines.
1:28 Kylie Low? I think that you'll enjoy this series so much that I want to share the first episode with you right here. But don't worry, the entire series is out for you to listen to now. So if you're ready for your next immersive true crime experience, listen to Dark Valley.
1:45 Speaker 01 Hi, I'm Jennifer Amell, host of Dark Valley. Thank you for joining me on this journey as we dig deeper into this case and into the stories of those most impacted. If you're finding yourself drawn into the story and want the best listening experience, I invite you to join the Crime Junkie Fan Club for ad-free access to Dark Valley, plus early and ad-free episodes of Crime Junkie, the number one true crime podcast, along with additional exclusive content from across the Audiochuck network. To learn more and to join, visit crimejunkiepodcast.com/fanclub. Your support means the world.
2:32 Speaker 01 It's August 6th, 1988. And this is the night it all ended. It's getting late, and all Jane Borowski wants is a cold drink. Yet the vendors at the Cheshire Fairground had closed for the evening. Jane is only 22 years old, but seven months pregnant and uncomfortable in the sticky heat of late summer. She finds her car parked in a field, a white Pontiac Firebird. Her boyfriend Dennis had bought it for her, and Jane loves her car.
3:14 Speaker 01 She thinks it's the best present anyone's ever given her. As she drives from Keene toward Swansea in central New Hampshire, Jane turns up the radio. Jane spots the fluorescent glow of Gomarlo's Market. The store's closed, but Jane knows there's a vending machine outside, so she pulls into the parking lot, digs around for some change, and purchases a soda. As she settles back into her Firebird and takes a sip, Jane notices a pair of headlights cut through the night. An older-model Jeep Wagoneer pulls into Gomarlo's parking lot and parks right next to Jane on her passenger side.
3:57 Speaker 01 She pays it little mind, but strangely, the man gets out of his truck, and instead of walking toward the vending machine or the payphone, he crosses behind Jane's car and comes to her window and leans down. "Is the payphone working?" he asks. But before Jane can answer, he opens her car door. He tries to pull her out. Jane struggles fiercely against him and somehow kicks upward as hard as she can. Her windshield shatters. The man leans into the car and presses a knife against her throat, its blade cool against her skin. Jane eases herself out of her car. You beat up my girlfriend, he says bizarrely. Jane's confused.
4:41 Speaker 01 She never beat up anyone's girlfriend and says as much. Aren't these Massachusetts plates? He asks. Jane shakes her head as she walks to the back of her car and looks at her New Hampshire plates. Then he turns around. It makes as if he's going back to his own car. Jane can't believe it. Relief floods through her. But then she looks at her prized firebird. And here's the thing you need to know about Jane Borowski. She's a fighter and she's not going to take anyone's bullshit. Hey asshole, she calls to him. What about my windshield?
5:16 Speaker 01 The man stalks back to Jane and threatens her with a knife again. Miraculously, Jane sees another car coming down the road and sees her chance. She breaks away, running toward the road, screaming wildly for help. But the car doesn't stop, doesn't see her, doesn't hear her. And then Jane is hit like a truck from behind as the man takes her to the ground. He straddles Jane and her pregnant belly and sinks the knife into her body over and over and over again. And Jane fights not just for her own life, but for the life of her unborn baby. And just as suddenly as it all started, he stops.
6:00 Speaker 01 The man calmly gets up and walks back to his truck. He pulls up to where Jane still lays on the ground. And from the driver's window, he stares down on the woman he had just stabbed 27 times. The blood begins to pool around her body. It's a long, cold stare. There's no expression, no feeling at all for what he'd just done. Then he guns the car out of the parking lot, leaving Jane Borowski to die alone, clutching her pregnant belly.
6:44 Speaker 02 My name is Jane Borowski. I survived. And I remember everything.
6:55 Speaker 01 From AudioChuck, this is Dark Valley, an investigation into the Connecticut River Valley Killer. I'm Jennifer Amell, and this is Episode 1.
7:40 Speaker 01 I had no idea what to expect from Jane Borowski. I knew that her story of survival was incredible, miraculous even. Her survival made her powerful, somehow stronger than the rest of us, larger than life itself. Jane and I finally meet in a rundown motel in Keene, New Hampshire, just miles from Gamalow's store where she was almost murdered 34 years ago. It's summer in New England, and the room is stuffy. All right, tell me your favorite joke.
8:14 Speaker 02 My favorite joke is, we set up a microphone on an ironing board.
8:19 Speaker 01 We are in a beautiful daisies.
8:25 Speaker 02 With bench friends that say, "Welcome, sunshine."
8:30 Speaker 01 It's such a happy place.
8:33 Speaker 01 Okay, I mean, it seems to, the levels are good. Jane is of course a survivor, but she's also warm and quick to laugh. She lives modestly and gives freely. She loves her family. And she's also a spitfire and sassy as hell. She smokes cigarettes with her arms crossed and blows smoke from the corner of her mouth. But more than anything, Jane is honest. She would say it took a lot to be so open, that she had to go through many dark years, overshadowed by that night in August of 1988. But here she is, in this shitty motel room, wearing a hot pink t-shirt and smiling so wide that it makes her eyes even bluer.
9:14 Speaker 02 You got that smile on your face.
9:16 Speaker 01 Oh, I'm smiling because I'm excited to ask this question because I
9:21 Speaker 02 Oh, what's that?
9:21 Speaker 01 I want to know about your childhood.
9:24 Speaker 02 Oh, my childhood. Well, my parents divorced when I was very young. We lived in Massachusetts. My dad lived in Hinsdale, New Hampshire, where I live now. And I saw my dad probably two or three times a year. We'd come up for school vacations and, and spend the week with him. And my mom moved us around a lot. When I turned 18, I decided to go to Hinsdale to visit my dad and spend more time with my dad. And I had some really good friends that lived in Hinsdale.
10:05 Speaker 02 So I stayed with one of my good friends that summer and I ended up meeting Dennis. And so my visit turned into, I still live in Hinsdale 36 years later.
10:24 Speaker 01 I don't blame you, it's beautiful here.
10:26 Speaker 02 Yeah, it is.
10:36 Speaker 03 A playground where steep mountains stand on end beside roads that are ideal for riding, where golf courses are surrounded by a countryside famed in song and story.
10:46 Speaker 01 If it weren't for the tragedies that happened here, I'd say the Connecticut River Valley is almost idyllic. We're technically in the Upper Valley, the borderland between New Hampshire and Vermont, which is bisected by the Connecticut River. The river is wide and blue and there's so many bridges that stretch across to connect the small towns. In the summer, the valley is so lush that I have a hard time naming that many shades of green. In fact, this land is fertile. It's the Northeast's most productive farmland. Jane's husband Dennis comes from a farming family himself, and now they live together on that land that they've worked for generations. Winters, on the other hand, are harsh, but the people
11:29 Speaker 01 here take pride in weathering the cold. It kind of makes them who they are. The roads that weave through the valley are full of potholes from harsh winters, and sometimes unpaved the further you get from the interstate. Before the 1970s, country life moved at an expected pace, measured out by the growing seasons and the snow seasons, planting rye or tapping the maples to sugar. And before the construction of the interstate highways, the valley was isolated. By 1978, Interstate 91 was completed, and the Connecticut River Valley changed forever. The highway made it easier to get to the valley, and it, of course, sparked the valley's tourism economy, but also brought new types of people, and
12:13 Speaker 01 with them, new types of crime. There's a definitive date you can point to when the valley became, and pardon the cheap allusion, darker.
12:26 Speaker 01 Kathy Milliken was only 26 in 1978. She was an avid birder, meaning someone who enjoys nature by donning a pair of Wellingtons and pinnoculars and going out to observe and catalog different species of birds. Kathy had long auburn hair with pale skin and a thin face. Kathy worked for a local publishing company in Wilmot, New Hampshire, which is about 45 minutes east of the Connecticut River. On October 24th, 1978, Kathy ventured out into the Chandler Brook Wetland Preserve in nearby New London. She had gone there to spot a particular kind of bird in the nature preserve.
13:08 Speaker 01 As Kathy was innocently scanning the skies and treetops, someone was also watching her. Kathy never made it home that evening. The next day, her body was discovered only yards from the trail. She had been stabbed over 20 times with wounds to her upper chest and neck. It was a vicious attack, but sloppy. The assailant didn't take any pains to hide or remove the body. Kathy was left where she was killed. Around the time of Kathy's murder, there were also a rash of child murders in the Upper Valley. And this was right around the time that the FBI started their Behavioral Analysis Unit
13:53 Speaker 01 that ultimately gave birth to the field of criminal profiling. Enter Dr. John Filppen, a man I have come to deeply respect. John is a forensic psychologist, and he was instrumental in developing the profile of the man who had committed all these child murders. Law enforcement credits John with helping catch that serial killer, Gary Shaffer. But John kind of disagrees with the whole approach that the FBI takes. As I got to know him, he's an old-school hippie kind of guy. He's got a long, white beard, looks a little bit like Gandalf, and is just as wise. That said, John is very protective of Jane and deeply distrustful of true crime.
14:36 Speaker 01 All told, it took about a year for me to win his trust and actually get him on tape.
14:42 Speaker 04 My name is John Filppen. First of all, I want to say that from day one, I have loathed.
14:51 Speaker 04 The title of profiler. I don't think that's what I'd do at all. The FBI essentially took off, you know, from that concept and marketed the word. I was starting my work right about the same time they were. That was when I decided that I had to come up with my own approach. A game that I used to play with my office manager. She would be reading some newspaper article of some atrocity. And I would tell her, if they catch this guy, this is what he's going to be like.
15:33 Speaker 04 But she would write down what I said and kind of tuck it away. And then if the guy was caught, she'd whip it back out and would look at it. And more often than not, I was right on the money. Then, right about that time, we had a local murder. My office was in Springfield, Vermont. We had a local murder, Teresa Fenton. It was a brutal homicide. But my office manager's reaction was, how can these things happen around here? Which is a common enough reaction. Things like this can't happen here.
16:14 Speaker 04 Well, we've all learned the lesson that they can and they do. And often repeatedly.
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18:51 Speaker 01 That case John's talking about? That was a victim of Gary Shaffer, the man John helped catch. Kathy's case was never tied to Shaffer. At the time, it seemed as if Kathy Milliken was kind of a one-off. They expected it was a personal kind of motive. In fact, they looked at Kathy's husband. Over the years, it was proven that he had an airtight alibi. He was at a work conference in the company of many other colleagues at the time of the murder. So who killed Kathy Milliken? You might be wondering what all this has to do with Jane Borowski and her attack in 1988.
19:28 Speaker 01 Here she is.
19:29 Speaker 02 I had just gotten out of the hospital. And of course, everybody around me was like, like when I was in the hospital, they didn't want me to see the news because I was on the news. They didn't want the newspapers to be brought into my room. I happened to be reading the newspaper. And I saw that it was an article about me. I think it was something like, the headline was something like, "Stabbing Victim Released From Hospital," or whatever.
20:01 Speaker 01 I have to interrupt Jane here for a little sidebar story. One day, Jane and I ventured to the library to do some archival research together.
20:13 Speaker 02 But it didn't take long. Oh, yeah. This is the one.
20:21 Speaker 02 I think this was the very first article I read.
20:27 Speaker 02 Yep, this was when I was released. That's the one I saw.
20:31 Speaker 01 Okay. Can you read the title?
20:35 Speaker 02 It says, "Stabbing Victim Is Released From Keene Hospital." It had said something about, maybe connected to the Connecticut River Valley serial killer.
20:52 Speaker 02 And it's like,
20:56 Speaker 02 Connecticut River Valley serial killer. And then I started reading, and they had a brief description of each victim.
21:05 Speaker 02 I just,
21:08 Speaker 02 I couldn't believe my eyes. I was like, are you kidding me? I had a hard time processing this. I'm reading in the paper, you know, Ellen Freed, she went missing this date, and then they found her remains on this date. And then each one I read, it wasn't, and none of them were survivors. It was, they were all murdered.
21:37 Speaker 01 Jane's attacker didn't start with her. Maybe he started with Kathy Milligan. Maybe he started elsewhere with some other unknown woman. But Jane is thought to be the only survivor of a serial killer who prowled the Connecticut River Valley between 1978 and 1988, and killed at least eight other women. He's known as the Connecticut River Valley Killer. And up until this point, the women he killed have only been known by their brutal deaths. The Valley Killer has never been caught. And Jane's attack, along with the murders of these eight women, remain unsolved to this day. Since Jane's attack in August of 1988,
22:20 Speaker 01 no other murder or attack in this area has been linked to the same man. By the mid-eighties, New Hampshire and Vermont had kind of caught on to the fact that they had yet another serial killer. They formed a task force. And then when Jane was attacked in 1988, the New Hampshire State Police decided to have Dr. Philbin clinically hypnotize her in hopes of recovering more details of her attack.
22:48 Speaker 04 I was suspending my own senses of logic, morality, and bringing him into my mind. And being him as often as I needed to be. There was only one time that I confronted that. It was pretty terrifying, but I was aware of what had happened. I had been filled in on all the details because there was a feeling that Jane's case
23:28 Speaker 04 might be tied to some of the other cases that had been happening in the valley. When Jane came in...
23:40 Speaker 04 She was nervous, of course. It was something she agreed to do, but at the same time, it was a little scary, I assume. When she came to the office the first time, she's a very sweet person, as you well know. She came in and was a little nervous and sat down and we just chatted at first. You know, the main thing I wanted to do was a reassurance kind of thing, so that she could feel like it was okay to be where she was. And I explained the process to her. Somewhere along the way in there, I noticed the scars on her throat.
24:26 Speaker 04 And I remember thinking, how did this nice young woman
24:37 Speaker 04 get those horrible scars on her throat?
24:43 Speaker 04 And what hit me was, I did it.
24:50 Speaker 04 The little bit that I had spent thinking about the case involved bringing the perk into my head. And I think by that time, I'd already been down to the market one time and scared the crap out of somebody who was getting a soda at midnight.
25:15 Speaker 04 But that was what hit me, was, you know, I did it. And it was like I had to snap out of it, believing, you know, that I had done it. And that whole week until I saw her again, I had...
25:32 Speaker 04 Nightmares, disturbed sleep, headaches. It was probably the most profound negative reaction that I had in all the years that I was doing this. And it was mainly because I was me and I wanted to help, but I was also the bad guy. And that was one of the liabilities that I learned at that time of bringing this fellow, whoever he happened to be, whatever case it happened to be, inside me, instead of pretending that I was inside who's had... It was a pretty horrible experience.
26:34 Speaker 01 So here's what we know. The Connecticut River Valley Killer's victims are believed to be connected by a few salient characteristics. The murders before Jane escalated in the 1980s and were relegated to the upper Connecticut River Valley along the I-91 corridor, with core cases situated near the town of Claremont, New Hampshire, off of Route 12. Each woman killed was in a vulnerable situation. Those whose remains were found early enough were killed by a frenzied and vicious attack. They were all stabbed with a small knife, usually in their upper chest, with their necks cut. Nearly all suffered a severed jugular vein in their necks. Whether or not there's only one Valley Killer, two, or several Valley Killers, is hotly
27:19 Speaker 01 debated among the authorities and the locals to the area and the victims' families alike.
27:25 Speaker 02 You know, the detectives absolutely believe that whoever attacked me is the one that killed them.
27:33 Speaker 05 It's hard to, yeah, I mean, it's hard to know what happens here, but yeah, definitely. Yeah, hers had blood spray and it sounded very like Jane's, you know, stabs but going for the throat.
27:45 Speaker 06 But they were not forthcoming at all with us, the family. And like I said, the former police chief at the time, he believed that she had just taken off.
27:55 Speaker 01 Jane herself is not even wholly convinced that her attack is connected to those women in Claremont, a mere 40 miles up the road. She strongly believes that it is, but it's important to say explicitly that it's not confirmed that all these cases were perpetrated by the same individual. So I began this project with all the gusto and enthusiasm of any true crime podcaster or investigative journalist. I wanted answers. I wanted to know who did it. I wanted justice for Jane and all the other women. But in getting to know Jane, I realized that this story is about something much more important. In fact, there's this incredible moment in the library in Claremont where Jane and I
28:40 Speaker 01 were reading through the archives. It's become something of a touchstone for me. We were going on hour three in the stacks when the librarian came over to check on us.
28:53 Speaker 03 So have you solved the murder yet?
28:55 Speaker 01 Pretty much.
28:59 Speaker 01 Not doing it to solve it.
29:03 Speaker 01 You can probably hear my nervous laughter. And I think it's because I was just reminded of why we're doing all of this in the first place. It's not necessarily to punish someone or to seek vengeance. It's not even for some vague sense of justice. It's so that these women, these eight women, are remembered beyond the facts of their horrific deaths. And that may sound trite, but it's my earnest conviction, and I have Jane to thank for the constant reminders and bringing me back to center. So, will we solve a serial killer case? I don't know. Maybe we will. But maybe it's not the most important thing.
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30:43 Speaker 07 You know that thing where you're scrolling the internet and suddenly you're three hours deep into a celebrity lawsuit?
30:48 Speaker 08 Where you hear a courtroom term and think, wait, what does that actually mean?
30:52 Speaker 07 I'm Eliza Orland, career public defender.
30:54 Speaker 08 And I'm Taya Johnson, law professor and legal analyst.
30:57 Speaker 07 And on our brand-new podcast, Criminally Online, we break down the law behind the stories you can't stop talking about.
31:03 Speaker 08 No legal degree required, just curiosity. Find Criminally Online wherever you get your podcasts.
31:14 Speaker 01 I wanted to kind of start and record why you decided to do this. Like, why now? Like, why did you say yes to me?
31:23 Speaker 02 Because you asked.
31:27 Speaker 01 Is it just because I asked?
31:29 Speaker 02 No, it's because nobody has really, nobody has really told the real story of the Connecticut River Valley murders. Nobody has told my story in a correct way.
31:46 Speaker 01 Jane, what's your mission with this?
31:50 Speaker 02 You know, I was thinking about that the other night. And I was thinking, what do I expect to come from this, come out of this? And, I mean, the fact of the matter is, maybe we'll find answers to some unanswered questions that I have.
32:13 Speaker 02 We may find more questions. And, you know, I have a lot of questions. I want to be a voice for those victims. If I could talk to them today, I would tell them how sorry I am. I'm sorry that they passed away so young. I'm sorry that they had to experience such fear and terror before they passed. I'm sorry that monstrous face is the last face they had to see before they passed away. And I'm sorry that their families had to and have to endure so much pain with their loss.
32:57 Speaker 02 But sometimes it's hard for me to think that, my God, you know, I survived what they also endured. And it's hard sometimes. It's, I ask myself all the time, why did I survive and they didn't? They call it survivor's guilt. And it is a very real thing. I don't know who these women were, but I know that they were doing the exact same thing I was doing before they were murdered. They were just living their lives.
33:37 Speaker 01 And what compelled you to want to find out about these other women?
33:45 Speaker 02 I wanted to, I wanted, I, for myself personally, I wanted to know, okay, what was the connection between them and me? Their case and my case. I just felt like I just needed to know more about what happened to them. And, and I, I needed to know, I just wanted to know, you know, how, how were they picked up? How were they abducted? Or when did they go missing? Or where did they go missing from? And where were they found? And I, I just, for some reason, I just wanted to know
34:26 Speaker 02 what happened to them and how was it connected to what happened to me? I guess it was, I needed to confirm.
34:38 Speaker 02 I needed to confirm exactly, you know, the comparison between me and them. Their case and my case.
34:50 Speaker 01 Do you think to better understand what happened to you?
34:56 Speaker 02 I don't know. I don't know.
35:01 Speaker 02 I have so many questions still. Even, I mean, it's been thirty-three years. And I still have so many questions, you know. I know that there are questions I probably will never get answered.
35:14 Speaker 02 You know, somebody had asked me one time,
35:19 Speaker 02 if they ever found out who did this to you, would you want to talk to them? Absolutely, absolutely. I would love to sit down and ask him so many questions. You know? Why did you do this to me? Did you follow me? Was I just a victim of opportunity? What happened to you in your life where you would want to go out and kill a woman? Why? What happened to you in your life? Why you would want to stab, attack and stab a pregnant woman, knowing she's pregnant? What did you do after? Did you drive home and eat supper? Did you drive home and take a shower?
36:04 Speaker 02 Because I know you had blood on you.
36:07 Speaker 02 You know, were you scared that you were going to get caught?
36:12 Speaker 02 You know, were you watching the news after my attack? And were you aware at that time that I was still alive?
36:22 Speaker 02 Were you thinking about coming back and attacking me? Did you, did you see me after that without me knowing? I mean, I have so many questions. So many questions.
36:38 Speaker 01 Stories are important. Stories can change minds, change culture and policy, can change lives. So I think what Jane is communicating is that through telling her own story and the stories of those other women, she wants some kind of change to occur. But it's a jumbled, confusing story, a 40-plus-year investigation that's carried on and fits and starts over time. These cases have been shuffled from generation to generation of investigators, from agency to agency. Memories have faded, people have died, and the wilderness has reclaimed these soiled sites along the Connecticut River, like it would any other dead thing.
37:21 Speaker 01 These women were strangers in life, and who in death are connected in some kind of perverse galaxy. And here's Jane, speaking like a woman possessed, trying to strain her ear beyond the veil, and hear these women speaking. Kathy, Betsy, Bernice, Eva, Ellen, Linda, Heidi, and Barbara. Jane and I traveled the roads these women were taken from. We tripped and crawled through the dense wilds where their bodies were abandoned. Tried to see these places through these women's eyes.
38:03 Speaker 01 Tried to imagine the fear and the fight. I've spoken to the families and friends of these women, and learned that there are more ways to grieve than I ever imagined. Where do we even start? If we did have to choose a beginning, it would be with Kathy Milliken's 1978 murder. Her case had receded in public consciousness like a fading nightmare. That was until the late summer of 1981, when the body of a missing woman turned up in the woods of Unity, New Hampshire. Who was this woman, and who had killed her? Next time on Dark Valley, Jane and I venture into the woods to investigate the Valley
38:48 Speaker 01 Killer's second potential victim. And one small detail might break these cases wide open.
39:02 Speaker 01 If you have a tip for any of these cases, please call the New Hampshire State Police Cold Case Unit at 603-271-2663, or the Vermont State Police Major Crimes Unit at 802-244-8781. Dark Valley was produced, written, and edited by me, Jennifer Mill. Original theme song by Jennifer Peg. Show art by Pamela Robinson. Want more Dark Valley? Go ahead and subscribe to Crime Junkie Fan Club and get exclusive access to bonus content. The link's in the show notes. Dark Valley is an AudioChuck production. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?
39:45 Kylie Low? In New England, investigations can shift with the tide. And my friend Delia Diambra, host of Park Predators, knows just how the landscape can shape a case. From beaches to national parks around the world, Delia investigates true crime cases as compelling as the places where they occurred. Through her signature boots-on-the-ground reporting, she goes beyond the headlines and speaks directly with those closest to the case. If you're ready to follow the evidence beyond the trail, listen to Park Predators every Tuesday, wherever you get your podcasts.
Previous UPDATE: The Disappearance of Kimberly Moreau (Maine) Next The Murders of Karen Clarke & Leroy "B.J." Brown Jr. (Connecticut) Page updated November 3, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated