A Connecticut man has been sentenced to 65 years in jail for the murder of his 39-year-old wife after his wild account of the killing was contradicted by her Fitbit device.
Richard Dabate, 46, was convicted in May of first-degree murder for shooting and killing his wife, Connie Dabate, in 2015 just two days before the couple was preparing to celebrate Christmas with their two young sons.
On Thursday, a judge in the Rockville Superior Court handed down a 65-year prison sentence, a ruling that superseded what the family of the deceased mother of two had requested – 60 years – after they had argued before the court that they themselves had suffered a “life sentence” of grief and loss.
Before delivering the ruling, Judge Corinne Klatt described Dabate, who maintained his innocence while delivering a brief statement before the court on Thursday, as a monster who committed a “brutal” and “calculated … incomprehensible act”.
“I can’t replace Connie in your lives, if I could order that I would certainly do it,” said Ms Klatt during the sentencing.
Ms Klatt ultimately delivered a sentence of 60 years for the murder of Dabate’s wife, and an additional five years for tampering with evidence and one year for providing a false statement to authorities.
Prior to the trial, the 46-year-old had remained free for several years after he’d posted a $1m bail, though his children were taken into the care of Connie’s sister, Leslie Garabedian, in 2017 after he’d been arrested.
The jury who convicted Dabate in May deliberated for only a few hours before delivering a guilty verdict, which came after a five-week trial that saw more than 130 witnesses called to the stand and introduced more than 600 articles of evidence.
Throughout the proceedings, the family’s lawyer for Connie, State’s Attorney Matthew C Gedansky, argued in painful detail how her husband had concocted “a selfish, cowardly evil plan” to do away with his partner of more than a decade, motivated by the simple fact that he had allegedly wanted to avoid an extramarital affair with a girlfriend that had resulted in an unplanned pregnancy being discovered.
By Dabate’s telling to police, he came home on the morning of 23 December 2015 to find a camouflage-clad intruder in the upstairs bedroom of their Ellington home. When the now-46-year-old man shouted out to warn his wife about the man, he skirted by him and chased his wife into the basement where the masked suspect then allegedly shot and killed Connie.
The defendant, whose attorney confirmed after the proceedings that he intends to appeal the conviction, then stated to police that he was zip tied by the assailant and stabbed in the stomach.
That timeline, however, was challenged by authorities and the prosecution after it was revealed that Connie’s Fitbit activity tracker, worn on the 39-year-old’s waist, and GPS cell phone data showed that she had gone to the YMCA that morning and didn’t return home till 9.18am, despite Dabate stating that she had been killed at approximately 9.05am.
The electronic tracking device seemed to further unravel Dabate’s narrative of events, when it also showed that it detected casual movement until 10.05am that morning, more than an hour after he’d said she’d been fatally shot in the family home.
Back in May, the defense attorney for Dabate argued against the legitimacy of entering the device’s data as evidence in the case, noting that the technology used in them were not designed with the accuracy needed for court testimony.
He also pointed to unknown DNA that was found in the Dabates’ home, including on the gun that killed Connie, and testimony from a house cleaner.
Upon hearing the sentence handed down after nearly seven years since Connie’s brutal slaying, the family praised the sentence, with the Hartford Courant reporting that it prompted the victim’s 84-year-old mother to raise her hands to the sky in a grand gesture of relief outside the courtroom on Thursday.
“I just feel like this surge from up above, the strength coming to me right now for all of us,” said Cindy Margotta, the mother of the mother of two, standing outside the courthouse, according to WTNH. “She’s here.”
The siblings of the deceased 39-year-old similarly praised the Connecticut judge’s sentence.
“It enables us to get a little bit of closure, even though it won’t bring Connie back,” said Keith Margotta, Connie’s. “As a family, we can move forward.”
Leslie Garabedian, one of the sisters of the victim, had on Thursday asked the judge to consider handing down three life sentences for the atrocity committed to her family. One for Connie, and two for her now 13 and 15-year-old sons, who now live with Ms Garabedian and her husband.
Dabate’s attorney, Trent LaLima, said in statements outside the Rockville courtroom on Thursday that he and his client intend to forge ahead with an appeal in the case, while acknowledging that he understood the day inside the courtroom – “no matter what side you’re on” – was a “very difficult day”.
“As Rick Dabate said in the court today, he is completely steadfast in his innocence and dedicated to proving his innocence,” said Mr LaLima. “We are going to continue to fight with the appeal. We look forward to continuing to fight for Rick Dabate. And we are confident, that in the end, Rick Dabate will prevail.”
