State Police Take Another Look At Cold Case Murders Of Patel Family

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The violent murders of Champaben and Anita Patel, a mother and daughter from Windsor, have been a mystery since they happened on March 21,1996. But cold case detectives from the Connecticut State Police, with the help of the Windsor Police Department, are taking another look at the evidence now, Brian Foley, the executive aide to James Rovella, who heads the state Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, said. “Investigators from the State of Connecticut Cold Case unit had begun to give this case some additional attention pre-pandemic,” Foley said. “Now that things have settled [down], the case and its evidence are again being reevaluated…The reevaluation particularly relates to the exploration of possible resubmission of evidence as DNA science has evolved a great deal.”

The Patels’ homicide is one of the cold cases listed on the Connecticut State Police’s Cold Case website. Anita Patel, 32, was stabbed 14 times in her kitchen, and her body was burned due to gasoline being poured around her while Champaben Patel, 54, was strangled and her body was burned in her bedroom, according to the website.

I-Team In-Depth

Court Awards, Settlements Rising In Distracted Driving Lawsuits

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A New Britain couple, seriously hurt in a cellphone-related car accident on Route 8 in Harwinton, received a $1.3 million settlement in November. The previous year, a jury awarded a Torrington woman $1.4 million after a driver, talking on his cellphone while turning, struck her head-on, breaking her wrist and causing permanent injuries to her neck and back. These are two of the largest awards or settlements to go to motorists injured in crashes since Connecticut’s ban on talking and texting on cellphones went into effect in 2005, and a recent change to court procedure may pave the way for more large settlements. Despite the large awards, the incidence of fatalities and injuries from motor vehicle accidents in the state has continued to rise in recent years, state data indicates. The total number of car crashes increased every year from 2011 to 2016– from 78,433 in 2011, to 116,117 last year — according to UCONN’s Connecticut Crash Data Repository, which contains data that the state Department of Transportation collects.