Paul Bass Photos
The scene in the rear lot of Catapano’s as work began.
It turns out that Lisa Calvo’s body wasn’t buried in the back of a Kimberly Avenue towing yard. At least not as far as New Haven detectives could tell. But they’re not giving up on the hunt for answers to a 10-year-old mystery of why she disappeared.
A crew of about 20 investigators spent the past week digging through the dirt at three separate subdivided lots in the rear of Catapano’s Autobody and Towing, following up on one of several new leads that have emerged in the missing-person case.
The police obtained a search warrant last week allowing them to search the premises for 10 days. They spent seven of the last eight days (taking off Sunday because of the rain) at the site from 6:30 or 7 a.m. until 7 pm., scouring the dirt for clues.
The crew included members of the police department’s Major Crimes Unit and Bureau of Identification, the state police (including a cadaver-sniffing dog), and University of New Haven’s forensics department.
City public works drivers cleared brush from the lots. Then they dug a little bit of dirt at a time while the state police canine sniffed around, and a duo from UNH checked the dirt with ground-penetrating radar.
NHPD
Lisa Calvo.
They were following up on information gathered in recent weeks about Calvo’s disappearance ten years ago. Calvo wasn’t a Yale medical student or a politician or a bank president. She sold sex on the streets of Fair Haven to feed a drug habit.
She was last heard from on Oct. 6, 2005, a day before she was scheduled to enter a drug-treatment program. She was homeless at the time. She was 41 years old, stood 4’ 11”, weighed 105 pounds, had curly brown hair and brown eyes. She was the mother of toddler twins.
E. Tuozolli Photo
Wucheck on site.
Police recently revived the investigation with the mass distribution of posters offering a $50,000 award for information helping them crack the case. That effort helped lead them to the dirt behind Catapano’s, where detectives had deep sunburns and poison ivy rashes by the middle of this week from all the work.
“She matters as much as anybody else. She has a family. She has people who love her,” Detective Michael Wuchek, one of the cops overseeing the dig, said during a break in the work.
“She deserves as much time, effort and blood, sweat, and tears as anybody else. If we don’t find her here, we’re going to continue to look. And not stop until we find her.”
NHPD
Evelyn Frisco.
Another woman who moved in similar Fair Haven circles, Evelyn Frisco, disappeared a year earlier than Calvo did. Police said they have not found evidence to connect the two cases. Frisco’s case, too, remains unsolved.
The crew digs four feet down at some spots.
On the first morning of work on the Calvo case at Catapano’s, the team focused on two spots on either side of a fence separating two side lots in the back yard. The city public works department sent over a Volvo fronthoe to clear the first area, after which point the police dog went to work along with a pair checking the dirt with radar.
A John Deere backhoe was deployed on the other side of a fence to clear the brush from the second spot.
“She matters as much as anybody else. She has a family. She has people who love her,” Detective Michael Wuchek, one of the cops overseeing the dig, said of Calvo during a break in the work.
Paul Bass Photo
“She deserves as much time, effort and blood, sweat, and tears as anybody else. If we don’t find her here, we’re going to continue to look. And not stop until we find her.”
The crew worked methodically, digging a few inches at a time, gradually going four feet deep in some targeted spot.
They came upon a lot of old tires, car parts, and sea shells (used to compact gravel) buried in the lots, according to Detective Sgt. David Zannelli, who’s overseeing the work with Wuchek and Inspector Bob Sage of the State’s Attorney’s Office. “There’s a lot of debris, a lot of junk. That’s why we’ve got to go slow,” he said.
Zannelli said that “Catapano’s has been great. This has nothing to do with them.”
Paul Bass Photo
UNH team employs ground penetrating radar.
The crew ended the search Thursday afternoon after failing to unearth a hoped-for dramatic discovery.
Wuchek with the new reward poster.
Although the Catapano’s search has led to a dead end for now, Wuchek vowed that investigators have just gotten started. He asked anyone with information related to the case to call (203) 946‑6288.
“We’ll just keep going until we find her,” he said.
