Zachary Groz photo
Chief Jacobson, with Asst. Chief David Zannelli: "We’re going to do everything possible to find out who did this."
(Updated) The two victims of a double homicide in the Dixwell neighborhood Monday night were friends — and evidence found by police at the scene of the fatal shooting point towards a potential robbery or drug deal gone wrong.
Police Chief Karl Jacobson provided that update during a Tuesday afternoon press conference at police headquarters about the fatal shooting Monday night of 49-year-old New Havener Clifford Capehart and 39-year-old Hamdenite Keron Troutman.
The New Haven Police Department first announced the double homicide in a press release posted to the department’s X account Tuesday morning.
Jacobson said police received three 911 calls at 9:50 p.m. Monday reporting gunshots and “injured persons in the road,” in the area of Winter Street and Goffe Street. The first squad cars responded to the scene by 9:52 p.m.
Upon arrival, officers found two men“laying in the street unresponsive with gunshot wounds,” according to Tuesday’s press release. Jacobson identified those men at Tuesday’s press conference as Capehart and Troutman.
Capehart was pronounced dead at the scene, Jacobson said. Troutman was transported to Yale New Haven Hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.
NHPD detectives cased the scene until around 3:40 a.m. on Tuesday, when the fire department took over to clean up the scene.
The detective bureau is still piecing together what happened from physical evidence, surveillance footage, and tips. They’ve been getting “good response from the community so far,” Jacobson said, though they are still asking for “anyone with information to call” the department.
Police said at least one shooter is still at large. No weapon was recovered at the scene, but Jacobson said officers found “some drug evidence.”
“We know that those two [Capehart and Troutman] were friends,” Jacobson said. “And we actually think this might have been a robbery or a drug deal gone bad, because of the evidence found on scene, but I don’t want to speculate yet. … They didn’t kill each other to our knowledge at this point.”
Jacobson said he had met with Capehart’s mother last night, who, he said, was “visibly shaken.”
“Our condolences go out to both families,” Jacobson said. “We’re going to do everything possible to find out who did this.”
Police ask that anyone who may have witnessed this incident or who may have information valuable to investigators to call detectives at 203 – 946‑6304 or through the department’s anonymous tip-line at 866 – 888-TIPS (8477).
The city’s most recently CompStat crime data report states that, by the week ending March 23, there had been two homicides in the city so far this year, compared to three by that same time last year.
Thomas Breen contributed to this report.