Paul Bass Photo
Sgt. Nick Marcusio (right) with Officer Maneet Bhagtana in Brendan Towers Monday.
Detectives knocked on dozens of doors Monday at the Brendan Towers apartments off Whalley Avenue seeking clues about the murder of Christian Garcia.
Garcia’s body was found Sunday night in a basement hallway of the three-story brick apartment complex set back from Whalley behind the Carriage Hill condominiums and next to St Brendan’s Church, near the intersection of Ella Grasso Boulevard.
Garcia, known as “Royal” to his friends, was 26 years old. He lived alone in Apartment 207 in the western wing of the complex; the basement hallway where police found him, responding to a 7:49 call, is in the eastern wing. They found him shot in the chest; EMTs declared him dead at the scene. The police also found several shell casings nearby.
“He was a cool guy,” said one tenant who said he hung out with “Royal.” He said he didn’t know if Royal had a job; police said he didn’t. Other tenants interviewed said they didn’t know Garcia but that he never caused any problems.
Paul Bass Photo
Police said Monday afternoon that they don’t have any suspects or a known motive in the homicide.
They also said they had yet to “definitively” connect Garcia’s murder to another shooting. Soon after they found Garcia Sunday night, a man walked into the Yale-New Haven Hospital’s St. Raphael campus emergency room with a gunshot wound.
“We strongly believe [the shootings] are connected, but the [detectives] haven’t officially connected it,” said police spokesman Officer David Hartman.