Detective Burnell Burrell had the killer’s name. Next he and Tyler Coward’s family needed patience.
Friday, police announced that the patience and hard work paid off: Police have put a murder suspect behind bars, bringing some closure to Tyler’s family.
The news came as police shared details on four “cold case” murders from 2007 and 2008 that they’ve solved in the past five weeks.
Tyler Coward’s life was cut short at age 18. He was fatally shot on June 12, 2007 near the big sundial in Edgewood Park.
He was Vickey Coward’s first-born child and her only son. The two had a “music bond,” she said: Tyler played drums. Vickey Coward plays piano. They’d perform together at St. James Church on Lawrence Street, where her father is pastor. When she got diagnosed with lupus, she said, Tyler became her caretaker. They had plans to enroll in college courses together once he got out of high school.
His death came as a blow to a tight-knit family, said Vickey Coward, who attended the press conference Friday at police headquarters with her husband and two daughters.
“When my son died,” she said, “I wanted to die.”
From the start, city cops helped share her heavy load. At one point, she said, she collapsed in grief onto Detective Michael Quinn, who first took her son’s case. She asked him how she could possibly tell her father that his only grandson had died.
After Quinn retired, the case fell into the hands of two hardworking young detectives. Detectives Burnell Burrell and Michael Wuchek took over in the fall of 2008, bringing fresh eyes to the case. Coward, a vocal advocate in solving her son’s case, was not shy about calling them. She said they always took her calls. They called her month after month, even when there wasn’t any news.
Burrell became “like family,” said Coward. “He fit right in.” The detectives even drove all the way out to Wethersfield to interview her, she said.
The Fatal Fingerprint
Early on in the case, police had the alleged killer’s name. Finding and arresting him took patience, and more legwork.
Here’s how they cracked the case, according to Assistant Police Chief Pete Reichard:
Early evidence showed that Tyler Coward entered Edgewood Park with two people on the evening of June 12, 2007, near the sundial at Stanley Street. One week later, patrol cops stopped a man with a gun in his car — a gun that matched the bullets from the murder scene.
That suspect led police to a second suspect. Cops “diligently and actively searched” for the second suspect, but he had apparently split town, Reichard said. The suspect who was found with the gun was convicted on weapons charges and sentenced to two years in jail.
Meanwhile, police searched national databases for the alleged triggerman, Jose Fuentes Phillich. They came up dry.
Fast forward to the fall of 2008. The state’s attorney’s office “randomly ran the suspect’s name” through a database and got a hit. Phillich had been picked up for a domestic violence dispute in Harrisburg, Penn.
City detectives went to Harrisburg on the day of the suspect’s arraignment. They conducted an interview and got the suspect’s DNA swab and fingerprints. They sent away the DNA evidence. They waited several months for the results to come back.
The results proved fruitful: The suspect’s fingerprints matched a fingerprint recovered at the scene of Tyler’s death. With that match, cops had the basis to draw up an arrest warrant for a murder charge on June 25, 2009. Phillich waived extradition rights and was transferred back to New Haven.
Once back in New Haven, Phillich sat down with detectives again. This time, he made a confession. He told police that he killed Tyler because of a previous dispute he had with Tyler, according to Reichard.
The suspect “just randomly brought [Tyler] into the park and killed him” to settle that prior dispute, Reichard said.
The assistant chief commended Burrell, Wuchek and their supervisor, Sgt. Tony Reyes, for a “phenomenal job” on the case. The young detectives took information from retired Detective Quinn and brought the case through to the end, he said.
“They did this for the family,” Reichard said. “They took it and they ran with it, working with it as diligently as they could, they were able to bring it to a resolve, and now finally we have some closure for the family.”
Patience Prevails
For his part, Burrell commended Coward for her cooperation. He acknowledged that the case must have been hard for her, especially because the alleged triggerman was “off the grid,” out of police’s reach for over a year.
“All we could tell her was it was going to be a matter of time,” said Burrell.
“She was very patient,” he said. “That’s what we need in these cases. She was very understanding and helpful.”
Coward (at right in photo) gave a round of hugs to all the detectives who’d helped her through the last two years.
She said now she will move forward, with a focus on taking part in the court proceedings for the man who’s allegedly responsible for her son’s death.
“I just want to be there and say something to him, and let him know I forgive him,” she said.
Breakthroughs Detailed
Reichard also filled in details of three other murders cops solved in the last five weeks:
• Cops arrested a man who allegedly ordered a hit on 33-year-old Hector Salvania of Fair Haven. The alleged hit-orderer had a longstanding dispute with Salvania stemming from when they knew each other in Puerto Rico, Reichard said. The two ran into each other again in New Haven. One night, they got into a tiff at the Van Dome nightclub. Their friends defused the fight. A couple of weeks later, they got into a second fight, also at Van Dome. That’s when the man allegedly ordered a hit on Salvania, who was shot to death on a porch at 60 Atwater St. on July 28, 2007. Click here to read more.
•¬†Cops have made three arrests in the Sept. 13, 2008 killing of Christopher Senior. The victim, age 25, was found dead in an alleyway near 81 Kensington St. at about 4 a.m. He had been shot several times.
• Police arrested a man for a double-homicide on County Street on April 19, 2008. The man allegedly lost a fist fight with one of the victims, William Burruss, at the Gotham Citi nightclub that night. The man then allegedly went to 143 County St. and ambushed Burrus and two friends as they arrived home. He opened fire, killing Burruss and Justin Davis, 24, cops said. A third shooting victim, Christopher Duncan, flagged down a ride to the hospital, and survived. Reichard credited Detectives Teague and Sutton with putting in “hundreds of hours” on solving the case.
All four cases involved disputes between people who knew each other, Reichard said; they weren’t random acts of violence.