Peter Manfredonia will concurrently serve two 55-year sentences after pleading guilty in February to a slew of charges stemming from his 2020 crime spree. Photo courtesy of Connecticut State Police Department/Twitter
April 21 (UPI) — A former University of Connecticut student who killed two people, injured a third, held a fourth hostage and kidnapped a fifth during a crime spree that forced police to launch a multistate manhunt to secure his arrest will serve two concurrent 55-year sentences.
Peter Manfredonia was sentenced to 55 years on Thursday in the Milford Superior Court for killing Theodore DeMers, 62, and wounding John Franco, 80, in Willington, Conn., on May 22, 2020, Tolland state’s attorney Matthew Gedansky said in a statement.
The sentence was handed down a day after he was sentenced to 55 years for the fatal shooting of Nicholas Eisele, 23, and the kidnapping of Shannon Spies in Derby, Conn., on May 24, 2020.
Prosecutors said the sentences are to be served concurrently.
Manfredonia, who pleaded guilty to the charges in February, was arrested May 27, 2020, in Maryland by police who had launched a manhunt to find him to end his crime spree that began on May 22 when he killed DeMers and seriously injured Franco.
Authorities said after committing that crime he invaded a nearby Willington home where he held Donald Hipsky hostage for more than 24 hours before heading about 70 miles southwest to Derby where on May 24 he fatally shot Eisele and kidnapped Eisele’s girlfriend, Shannon Spies, whom he held at gunpoint for more than seven hours as he drove to New Jersey.
Spies was later found unharmed by authorities at a New Jersey rest stop.
Police would eventually arrest Manfredonia in Hagerstown, Md., which is located about 75 miles northwest of Baltimore.
“The defendant does not deserve to live, but the court system says that he must,” Franco said Thursday, the Hartford Courant reported. “My personal feelings are that he should be terminated.”
Gedansky on Thursday thanked the victims “for taking active roles in the resolution of this case” and the various law enforcement agencies that worked to apprehend Manfredonia.
“If not for the extraordinary efforts of the Connecticut State Police, the FBI, the U.S. Marshals Service and law enforcement officers in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland, the defendant’s crime spree may have continued on,” he said.
