Police Report Provides Details Of Double Homicide In Enfield

ENFIELD, CT — A police report written shortly after a welfare check call turned into a double homicide investigation contains details of the horrific scene officers encountered upon forcing entry into an Alden Avenue apartment Sunday evening.

James Samuel Bell, 63, was pronounced dead at the scene, and Maryrose Riach, 72, later died at an area hospital. Riach's granddaughter, Harlee Swols, 22, was inside the apartment despite a full protective order against her; she was taken into custody and charged with criminal violation of a civic protective order.

The 3-page incident report obtained by Patch was written by Officer Brett Whitcomb, one of the first three officers to arrive at the scene following a "domestic in progress" call at 17-B Alden Avenue, received at 6:37 p.m.

The report indicates Whitcomb and officers Dennis Roche and Steve Austin arrived at the apartment house at 6:38 p.m. Whitcomb said he went to the east side of the building, where a staircase leads to a second floor apartment.

"On the ground at the bottom of the stairs was a large piece of broken glass and a small metal item," he wrote. "I walked up the stairs and saw that the first window on the top porch was smashed open and there was glass all over the porch and stairs. I continued up the stairs and saw a female lying in a pool of blood face down, but I could see her chest rising and falling."

Whitcomb 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," Whitcomb wrote, stating he pulled his gun and told Swols to "get on her knees with her hands behind her head." She complied, and Austin 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 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, according to the report.

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.

Enfield detectives and the Connecticut State Police Major Crimes Unit processed the scene for evidence through Monday. Additional charges are expected to be filed, Chief Alaric Fox said.

Swols was arraigned Monday in Hartford Superior Court. She is being held in lieu of $1 million bond, and is due back in court Aug. 26, according to judicial records.

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