Mistaken For A Dummy: Did Redding's Peter Valenti Have To Die?

REDDING, CT — “Holy s---. Look in there. There’s a f------ dummy hanging by a noose," said Officer Jenna Matthews of the Redding Police Department upon discovering the body of Peter Valenti. She did not realize she was looking at him.

That came a little later, one of a series of potential missteps that included no one checking to see if Valenti was still alive and an EMT initially being kept from examining the body — a delay that the EMT said could have affected the way events unfolded.

Twenty-two minutes before Matthews found the "dummy" at 11:06 on the morning of April 11, 2016, four of Valenti's friends received the same text message from him: “Call redding police, 23 Blueberry hill rd, redding.” Ninety-four minutes later, Valenti would be pronounced dead at Danbury Hospital. He had hanged himself in the shed behind his house.

Here's the question his family wants answered: Did Valenti, whose body was initially misidentified as a dummy by responding officers, have to die? He was 32-years-old.

Patch has reviewed body-camera video recorded by responding officers, police records, and a complaint filed by the first emergency medical technician on the scene to develop this account. Patch reached out to the Redding Police Department but has not heard back.

The research indicates that 34 minutes elapsed from the time officers first arrived until someone actually examined Valenti's body.

When that finally occurred, his heart still had a rhythm. But it was too late. Despite their best efforts, emergency workers at the scene were unable to keep him alive.

Just one month before his own death, Valenti — a 32-year-old project engineer at a company that makes medical imaging devices — lost his wife, Paula, to an asthma attack. As a result, he became the sole caretaker for their 15-month-old son, Vincent.

Within one month, Vincent had lost both his parents.

A SUDDEN DEATH

On March 10, the Valentis were at their home on Blueberry Hill Road in Redding. It was nearly two weeks before their fourth wedding anniversary. Paula had moved to the United States – Denver, originally – from Brazil for a nanny position. They met in New York and fell in love.

Paula, Peter’s mom says, was the love of his life.

The couple married on March 23, 2012. The following year, they bought the home in Redding, and Paula took a job as an office manager for a dentist. Their son was born in October 2014. Family members describe a family-focused life: birthday parties and holidays with cousins, swimming lessons for Vincent and playground visits.

All that came to an end March 10, when Paula suffered a sudden bronchial asthma attack. Although she was taken to the hospital quickly, nothing could be done. Peter was suddenly a widower, and the single father of a 15-month-old child

SEND THE POLICE

On April 11, Valenti sent an ominous text message to his friends David McGrath, Nick Auresto, Sean Donnellan, and Athanasios Liaskas imploring them to send the police to his home. There were no other details, but the four all knew their friend had been having a hard time after Paula's death.

Peter’s sister, Andrea, had been staying with him and Vincent during the week. On weekends, Peter and Vincent would stay with his parents either at his home in Redding or at theirs in Stormville, New York.

“Hi, Pete, just checking in to say I love you to my two boys, love you guys,” Peter’s dad texted him at 7:12 Sunday night, after Peter and Vincent had returned home after spending the weekend in Stormville.

“We love you too,” Peter wrote back.

“Try to get some rest, we’ll talk tomorrow,” his dad replied.

April 11 was the first day Peter was on his own.

His friends called 911. They texted Peter back.

“Peter I called they are sending someone over,” wrote one. “Is everything okay?”

“Talk to us Pete,” urged another. “Called police.”

“I called as well," wrote a third.

Stephen Peterson was working at the 911 dispatch center when the calls began coming in.

Peterson told a caller that he knew the address, that he had heard about Paula’s death. He told one caller that he had taken “a whole bunch of phone calls from a whole bunch of people” and the department was trying to figure out what was going on.

At 11:14 a.m., he dispatched officers to Blueberry Hill Road.

A DUMMY HANGING BY A NOOSE

Officer Jenna Matthews and Sgt. Peter Quinn were the first to arrive. They pulled up to the home at 11:21, 15 minutes after Valenti sent his text message.

There are two buildings on the property: the house with an attached garage and a shed separated by a walkway from the garage. Walking up the driveway, you encounter the shed first.

Quinn and Matthews are both wearing body cameras as they start to investigate.

Matthews had been on the property for one minute when she walks on the path between the garage and the shed. She looks in the window of the garage but does not try the door to the shed.

Thirty seconds later, she walks by the shed again without checking the door.

Forty-five more seconds pass, and she passes the shed again without trying the door.

About two minutes later, Captain Mark O’Donnell and Chief Douglas Fuchs arrive at the house. Due to some confusion, they originally went to the home across the street before heading to the Valenti residence.

Soon after arriving, O’Donnell is seen walking by the shed without checking the door.

Matthews then stands between the garage and the shed for about 20 seconds. Again, she does not check the shed.

Quinn — who has been at the home for slightly more than seven minutes at this point — then walks between the shed and garage. As he looks around, he does not check the shed.

Fourteen seconds later — after Matthews and Quinn had been at the home for nearly seven-and-a-half minutes – Matthews checks the shed door.

“Holy s---,” she says. “Look in there. There’s a f------ dummy hanging by a noose.”

It takes her about 30 seconds to look back in and conclude the “dummy” is actually Peter Valenti.

“I just found the body,” she says.

NO ONE CHECKS VALENTI

Upon discovering the body, Matthews makes no attempt to check Valenti's vitals, get him down or see if he is still alive. On video from her body cam, she can be heard saying that she should have checked the door to the shed earlier — that she had a feeling about it.

O’Donnell tells Chief Fuchs they found Valenti and asks if they should “cut him down.”

Fuchs says no and walks up to the shed.

“Is he definitely dead?” he asks Matthews.

“Well, I mean, I thought it was a dummy,” she answers. “It looked like he’s gone.”

At this point, judging by evidence from body cam videos and in police reports, there are no indications anyone has checked Valenti for signs of life.

Attention then turns to the whereabouts of Valenti’s son, Vincent, who is quickly determine to be at day care.

During the next couple of minutes, several of the officers are seen walking into the shed, using flashlights to examine the scene. At no point does anyone check Valenti's vitals.

“We have two parents dead, this now a crime scene, OK?” Fuchs tells Matthews at about 11:32. She had been there for about 11 minutes. No one has checked Valenti for signs of life.

EMT TOLD HE CAN'T HELP

Sean Morris, an emergency medical technician, arrives at the scene and gets out of his ambulance. Matthews, who has been there for 14 minutes, tells him not to pull in because they need to leave room for a fire truck to pull up so they can get access to the house.

Chief Fuchs tells him the same thing.

“This is an obvious suicide,” Morris quotes Fuchs telling him. “We just need a fire truck to gain entry to the house and a medic to confirm the death.”

Morris asks if he can go in to check Valenti.

“No,” he quotes Fuchs as telling him. “This was a crime scene.”

Around 11:47, Fuchs asks Fire Chief Michael Heibeck if Morris was authorized to “pronounce a dead person.”

When Heibeck tells him yes, Fuchs directs O’Donnell to let Morris inside.

At 11:50, Morris and a paramedic approach the shed and soon become the first people to physically inspect Valenti. They hook up a portable electronic cardiac monitor to him.

At 11:56, they discover that he has a heart rhythm.

With the help of a detective who had arrived at the scene, they quickly cut him down, move him to a backboard and begin performing CPR. They get him into an ambulance and rush him to Danbury Hospital where staff takes over care of Valenti at 12:35.

Five minutes later, he is pronounced dead.

"MAJOR DELAY IN CARE"

Sean Morris raised questions about the handling of the scene.

The next afternoon, he sent an email to the Heilbeck, the fire chief, and Jim Mecozzi, the fire commissioner.

“I believe some issues may have occurred that have the potential to put myself, Fire Dept., and Fire list at risk,” he wrote. “My main issue is that there was a major delay in care of about 13 minutes which I felt obligated to help but was kept out by police line tape Chief Fuchs not allowing me to do my job because ‘it was a crime scene and obvious death.’

“This resulted in possible delay in pt (patient) outcome.”

The policy handbook of the Redding Police Department states that while maintaining the integrity of a crime scene is important, there are exceptions.

“Maintain crime scene integrity: unless it’s necessary to assist injured persons,” reads section 35.

That same section states: “An investigator’s first responsibilities to any victim who must be protected and first aid should be rendered as needed; attending to injured persons will receive highest priority, even if it permits any suspect to escape; protecting life takes precedence over the pursuit of criminals.”

The handbook also states officers have a duty to render to emergency aid.

“A sworn officer shall render competent emergency medical aid, or shall obtain necessary medical assistance for any ill or injured person encountered,” reads section 29 of the handbook.

"LET'S HOPE IT JUST GOES AWAY"

Vincent is now in the care of Peter Valenti’s parents, who believe their son didn't have to die that day and are planning to file a lawsuit against the police department.

Peter’s dad was called to his son’s home and told when he arrived that Peter was dead. About 20 minutes later, he saw Sean Morris and the paramedic frantically moving Peter's body to the ambulance as they tried to save his life.

City officials recognized the situation might have gone awry.

“My fear is the man’s father arrived on scene as the ambulance pulled up, observed no activity, then suddenly all hell breaks loose and his son is being worked up,” Fire Commissioner Mecozzi texted Julia Pemberton, the town’s first selectman.

“He has to be questioning the on-scene actions.”

Mecozzi then went on to list a couple of possible issues with Chief Fuchs’s actions.

“The chief not knowing an EMT can pronounce thereby delaying patient contact, is an issue,” he texted. “The chief assuming PT (patient) was ‘definitely dead’ then the father sees EMS working son…might have him raising questions.

“Let’s hope it just goes away quietly.”

Photo of Peter and Paula Valenti courtesy of the Valenti family.