DERBY, Conn. — Derby’s mayor, Rich Dzieken, says residents, of the neighborhood in which Nick Eisele was shot to death, allegedly by Peter Manfredonia, had been sleeping with their guns for a few days. But, now that the suspect has been captured, there’s. Everyone can exhale. Except for the victim’s neighbor.
Nick Eisele’s downstairs neighbor, who will only identify himself as Jesse, says he still feels guilty that he could’ve prevented Manfredonia from escaping with Eisele’s girlfriend.
“I just wish that I called the police, but we don’t wanna start any trouble with our neighbors,” Jesse said.
He said, at about 5 AM Sunday, he heard some commotion upstairs, where Eisele and his girlfriend had lived for approximately a year.
“I heard like a bang, like somebody hitting the ground,” Jesse said. “The floor shook. So, it was pretty loud--I heard a girl scream.”
He said he heard some arguing, as well, but he said occasionally he had heard that before. Then, when he woke up after 10 o’clock, the two family apartment house was swarmed by police.
“That’s when I kind of realized something horrible must’ve really happened here,” Jesse said.
Then, last night, just after 9 o’clock, the manhunt ended in Hagerstown, MD.
“Peter just walked out of the woods, approached them and they ordered him to the ground,” said Manfredonia’s lawyer Michael Dolan. “He complied and they affected the arrest at that point.”
Shortly after the arrest, Dolan spoke on the phone with his client.
“The only comment regarding our conversation, I’m not going to talk about the content of our conversation,” said Dolan. “But, Peter is scared and he was tired last night and he’s exhausted.”
An attorney spoke on behalf of the Eisele family:
Connecticut State Police said it may take a week or two for them to extradite Manfredonia back to Connecticut
“His parents were relieved that this ended peacefully,” Dolan added.
Jesse says the outcome really hurts because Eisele and his girlfriend were great neighbors.
And, he still feels uneasy about coming home to the apartment every day.