Murder Charges Filed Against Enfield Woman In Double Homicide

ENFIELD, CT — Charges of two counts of murder were filed Wednesday against an Enfield woman accused of killing her grandmother and a man Sunday night.

Harlee Swols, 22, has been in Department of Correction custody since the deaths of Maryrose Riach, 72, and James Samuel Bell, 63. She was originally charged with violation of a protective order, implemented following an incident in early July which led to her being barred from the premises at 17 Alden Avenue.

Swols has been held in lieu of $1 million bond since her arrest. Bond on the two charges of murder has been set at $2 million, and she is slated to be arraigned on those charges Wednesday afternoon in Hartford Superior Court.

A "domestic in progress" call was received from a downstairs neighbor at 17 Alden Avenue at 6:34 p.m. Sunday. An officer reported seeing broken glass and a small metal object at the bottom of a staircase, then saw a woman lying face down in a pool of blood, according to a police report.

Officers kicked in the front door to the apartment and heard a shower running, then a woman, later identified as Swols, came through a bathroom door into the kitchen.

"She was fully clothed but soaking wet with water and blood," Officer Brett Whitcomb wrote in a report, stating he pulled his gun and told Swols to "get on her knees with her hands behind her head." She complied, and another officer placed her in handcuffs.

Upon searching the apartment, police found a man, later identified as Bell, "face down on his knees near the bottom corner of the bed with a large laceration to his neck and stab wounds on his arms and back," Whitcomb wrote. The laceration extended "from one side of his neck to the other and across the area of the artery," he wrote.

The severely injured woman, later identified as Riach, has sustained "a large laceration to the collar bone/neck area" and had a faint pulse. Enfield EMS "proceeded with life-saving measures" and transported her to Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, where she was pronounced dead at 7:34 p.m., according to the report.

An autopsy determined Riach had sustained "22 sharp force injuries throughout various areas" of her body, and her "right jugular artery had been severed," according to an affidavit supporting Swols' arrest.

Bell had suffered about "30 stab wounds with depth and approximately 12 more superficial wounds spread out over the body," according to the affidavit.

Swols had bloody wounds on both hands, and her shirt and jeans were covered with blood. She "was showing no emotion at all when I first contacted her," Whitcomb wrote.

An Uber driver told police he had picked up Swols in front of her employer, Staples at Brookside Plaza around 6:30 p.m. and delivered her to the Alden Avenue home, but she told him to turn onto Windsor Street and park by the rear lot, according to the affidavit..

Both the Uber driver and a neighbor told police they heard a woman screaming, "Help me!" from the upstairs apartment, and called 911, according to the affidavit.

Swols told police she had been invited to Riach's home to pick up some belongings, and then "things got out of hand." Asked to explain what she meant by that statement, "she repeatedly stated that she didn't know or that she could not remember," according to the affidavit.

Swols told police an argument ensued, during which Bell came at her with a black knife. She said she got the knife away from him, but when questioned as to what happened next, she stated, "Not good things, clearly." She also said "she hurt someone with the knife," but would not elaborate and requested an attorney, according to the affidavit.

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