The man suspected of killing at least seven women and dumping them behind a New Britain strip mall is already serving time in a Connecticut prison for killing another woman, according to a report.
William Devin Howell, 45, is the man linked to the serial killings, all thought to have been carried out in 2003, sources told WVIT-TV.
Howell was the last person to be seen with 33-year-old Nilsa Haydie Arizmendi in July 2003. She’d met up to buy drugs from the handyman, went missing and is presumed dead.
Blood belonging to Arizmendi was discovered in his van, but her body was never found.
He was arrested in Virginia in 2005 and convicted of manslaughter in 2007.
That was the year the remains of three women, all of whom struggled with drug addiction and hung out in the same New Britain neighborhood, were found behind the strip mall along Hartford Road, among a 15-acre patch of woods.
Diane Cusack, 53, Joyvaline Martinez, 23, and 40-year-old Jane Menard were last seen alive in 2003. Each was positively identified in 2010, 2013 and 2014.
A search last month using cadaver-sniffing dogs uncovered four more sets of remains, leading cops to say they were “confident” all seven murders were the work of one killer.
One set of remains found in April was identified as Melanie Ruth Camilini, a mother of two who have celebrated her 42nd birthday on Monday, the day cops announced her skeletal remains were among those in the woods.
Camilini also disappeared in 2003.
It’s unclear if one of the sets of remains belongs to Arizmendi. She was last seen alive in Howell’s van in Wethersfield. He’d been known to cut lawns at businesses and homes in and around the Hartford area. His alleged dumping ground in New Britain is just 13 miles from the Connecticut capital city.