It was December 23, 2015, only two days from Christmas & 39-year-old Connie Dabate was eagerly awaiting Christmas morning when the family would gather, spend the day together & open presents. The Dabate family consisted of Connie, her 40-year-old husband, Rick & their two sons. The family lived together in their home at 7 Birchview Drive in Ellington, Connecticut. Connie worked as a pharmaceutical rep while Rick was a computer technician. The community where they lived was very tight-knit & neighbors would often move between each other’s houses, visiting together. Connie was known to her friends & neighbors as a person who was all about the fun.
On that Wednesday, December 23, Peggy, a friend & neighbor of Connie & Rick’s, was taken aback when she glanced out her window & noticed police officers with guns trained at the Dabate home. Immediately concerned, she picked up the phone to call Connie, but Connie didn’t answer. Soon, their entire street was filled with state troopers & the Dabate driveway was lined with police cars.
The police responded to the Dabate home after an alarm within the house went off at 10:16 am, followed by a 911 call that came through six minutes later at 10:22 am. The caller could be heard moaning & requesting help as an audible alarm blared in the background.
A member of the Ellington Fire Department was the first to arrive at the Dabate home at 10:30 am. He found the right side of the two garages was open. As he approached the front door, the storm door was closed, but the inner front door was open. As he entered the home, he detected the odor of smoke & noticed a hazy appearance to the main level of the home. He followed a trail of blood drops to the kitchen & found Rick Dabate laying on his right side on the floor with a metal folding chair tangled on him. The first responder realized that Rick was tied to the chair & as he approached him, he moaned out, they’re still in the house.’
Additional units were dispatched with the presumption that this was a home invasion. By 10:34 am officers & K9 units were at the home & quickly secured the scene. In the meantime, EMS tended to Rick & removed the zip ties from his right wrist & ankles that were attached to the folding chair & noted that his left arm was free & raised above his head with a black cell phone within reach. He wore tan pants that had blood drops & smears of blood at the backside, a green polo & brown shoes. They found cuts to his chest & legs & they began to prepare him for transport to the hospital.
Rick told the officers that his wife had been shot in their basement. While the inside was secured, officers also scoured the neighborhood & alerted area residents that the invader had fled the scene on foot, advising neighbors to remain inside their homes with the doors locked.
Concerned friends of Connie’s continued to call her, hoping & praying she would pick up & let them know that she was okay, but their calls remained unanswered, their anxieties only grew with each unanswered call. Peggy stood near her window when she overheard a police scanner mention, DOA, going to Hartford Hospital. At this point, Peggy flew into a full-blown panic, now aware that someone inside her friend’s home was dead.
As officers continued to investigate the Dabate home, which was cheerfully decorated for Christmas, they learned that the couple’s 6 & 9-year-old boys were at school that morning. They found that the house was tidy & not in any sort of disarray.
Moving to investigate the basement where Rick indicated his wife could be found, they noted blood trails leading down the stairs & as they reached the basement, they noticed a much larger area of blood at the bottom. They detected the odor of smoke & saw a small pile of papers on the floor that appeared to be burned with a yellow butane torch nearby. As they moved to the unfinished portion of the basement, they found Connie in the corner, lying face up. She was wearing workout clothing & gym shoes & sadly, she was pronounced dead at 10:58 am. It was obvious that gunshot wounds had been her cause of death & a Ruger .357 Magnum lay near her body & later proved to be registered to Rick.
Soon, Rick’s father began to make phone calls to inform Connie’s loved ones of the devastating news of her sudden & violent death. No one could process the news as they crumbled from grief.
Connie was a beloved woman who everyone adored so no one could understand who could have ever hurt such an amazingly sweet person. She was someone that others were immediately drawn to since she had a knack at putting people at ease & always put others before herself.
Connie had met her husband Rick through a mutual friend when she was home on summer break from college in 1997 & was immediately drawn to the fact that he was a handsome, Italian man. Their relationship started as a friendship, but quickly progressed to something deeper. Connie’s family felt that Rick was the perfect fit since the couple loved to have fun together. Rick was described as someone who loved to joke around & was laid-back.
Connie & Rick got married in July 2003 & eventually welcomed their boys into their lives. The Dabate home was a place where people always gathered together to celebrate various occasions. The image of officers & crime scene tape around the house was a shocking sight for friends & neighbors to see.
As Rick was being treated at the hospital, detectives headed there to speak with him since he was the sole living witness to whatever occurred that morning. They hoped he would be able to provide a description of the intruder in hopes of finding him. During his time in the ER, doctors treated wounds to his legs, shoulder & the back of his head. Hours after the attack, detectives gathered in the ER & spoke with Rick who they described as conscious & coherent.
Rick said he was unable to shake the image of his wife lying on the basement floor. Earlier that morning, they’d gotten the boys off to school & Connie got ready to head to the gym. Rick left the house with the boys shortly after 8 am where he drove them to the bus stop. He came back home at about 8:30 am so he could change into a work shirt & it was at this time that he saw Connie backing her car out of the driveway, heading out for her spin class at the local YMCA.
Once changed, Rick left to make his forty minute commute to work, but not ten minutes down the road, he realized he’d forgotten his laptop. As he turned around to come back, his phone started pinging alerts for his home security system. The security system consisted of motion & door sensors & since he’d seen Connie leaving for the gym, he assumed she wasn’t there. With this, Rick stopped to send his boss an email, letting him know that he’d be late getting in.
According to Rick, when he got back home between 8:45 & 9 am, he heard a noise coming from upstairs & assumed it was only the cats who were known to knock things over. However, when he went up to investigate, he came across a man wearing green camouflage, a camouflage mask & gloves, looking through their walk-in closet. Because of the clothing he wore, Rick was unable to determine the man’s race. He was very large in stature, about 6’2” with a stocky build. He had an extremely deep voice which Rick likened to that of Vin Diesel.
The man held a knife & demanded Rick’s wallet & PIN numbers & threatened that he would get what he wanted & if he didn’t, he would sit quietly until his family came home. This was when he heard Connie coming in through the garage door so he yelled out for her to leave the house. Rick assumes that instead of fleeing the house to safety, Connie ran to the basement to retrieve a gun that Rick had purchased only two months earlier, in order to save her husband. The intruder suddenly knocked Rick to the ground & ran in the direction of Connie as Rick stumbled to his feet to chase after him.
When he reached the basement, Rick heard a loud bang & believed he saw Connie laying on the ground, but she was quiet after that. She had been shot twice, once in the back of the head & once in the stomach. When Connie was pronounced dead, investigators noted her cell phone tucked into the right side of the waistband of her pants & her Fitbit clipped to the left side.
The autopsy was completed the next day & other than the two gunshot wounds, there were no other injuries found to Connie’s body which indicated that no struggle had occurred before her death.
According to Rick, after he shot Connie, the man turned & placed him onto a folding chair & tied him to it with zip ties. He utilized the tools that Rick stored in the basement & cut him with a box cutter & burned him with a handheld blow torch. With one leg & one arm free, Rick managed to fight back & was able to knock the blow torch which caught the man’s mask on fire. With this, the man dropped the torch & ran from the house. The next thing Rick recalls was screaming for help as he pulled himself up the stairs, still partially tied to the chair. Once on the main level of the home, he triggered the home’s security system using his keychain fob & called 911.
Rick was discharged from the hospital that same day after he was treated for his minor injuries. He went back to his aunt’s house so he could clean himself up before picking his boys up from his parent’s house. His family said that Rick was still in shock & only wanted to be with his boys. Once reunited, he was faced with sitting them down to break the devastating news that their mother was gone.
Meanwhile, investigators remained at the Dabate home, speaking with neighbors & scouring the house for evidence & clues. As they spoke with neighbors, they were hoping to get information from a witness who may have seen something, but no one had seen anything suspicious that morning.
Friends did tell investigators about an ongoing argument that Rick & Connie had been having with a contractor, Ken Sweeny. Apparently, things had gotten so bad that Rick & Connie voiced concern that Ken could potentially break into their house. Rick & Connie had been angry with Ken about unfinished projects that escalated to the point of a lawsuit.
Even before the deadly home invasion, suspicious things had been happening; a towel was shoved into one of their car’s mufflers & a week later, their windshield had been smashed. Connie was always scared of guns, but she voiced the possibility that they might buy one to protect themselves because she was growing so fearful of Ken. Many neighbors & friends readily told investigators about this person & Rick did the same.
Detectives were dispatched to speak with Ken Sweeney at his home & he fully admitted to having issues with the Dabates. He elaborated that he was hired to work on a bathroom in their home & as the job was underway, their expectations weren’t in line & Ken made the decision to back out which led to a civil suit. The case was settled in small claims court before Connie was murdered. Ken did not have a history of violent offenses & denied having anything to do with the murder. He provided investigators with an alibi & indicated that he had been on another job site. Also of importance, Ken did not have a large stature or a deep voice as Rick described the suspect.
Investigators noted that one of the basement casement windows was removed, which they found on the basement floor. There was no indication that the window had been pried open & a layer of dust made it clear that no one had entered through this area. Investigators also noted a text message from Connie to Rick on December 21, two days before her murder, when Connie told Rick that the window had fallen out in the basement & it was freezing down there.
Rick’s wallet was also located, still with money & bank cards inside, laying in the grass in the backyard. As the home was inspected, investigators noted drops of blood at the top of the basement stairs that transitioned to smears going into the kitchen. This would indicate that Rick had been walking as he came up from the basement which was a direct contradiction to what he told police about dragging himself up the basement stairs with the folding chair tethered to his back.
In addition to the gun near Connie’s body, police also found a second gun that had been registered to Rick in the primary bedroom closet where he indicated that he first came upon the intruder. The gun would have been readily available for his use after the intruder fled the room & ran in Connie’s direction as Rick had indicated.
On a blustery cold day in late December, right after Christmas, hundreds gathered to honor Connie’s life. The sheer volume of mourners reflected just how much Connie was loved & now missed. Friends gathered around Rick to show their support & as Connie’s two best neighbor friends finally reached the front of the line at her wake, they were baffled when Rick acted confused & asked them who they were & how they knew Connie. They could only chalk it up to the fact that maybe he was still in shock & grief stricken. At the same time, they couldn’t help but notice that despite the fact that their beloved friend was dead, Rick didn’t seem to have a scratch on him.
Others could also not ignore Rick’s strange behavior during Connie’s funeral when they realized that Rick left not only the gravesite, but also the luncheon after, before other mourners had.
On Christmas Day, two days after the shock of Connie’s murder, her family went to Rick’s parent’s house to be with her two young sons. They felt it was important that the children have some semblance of normalcy in the wake of losing their mother. During their visit, they couldn’t help but notice Rick’s odd demeanor that evening as he seemed unable to make eye contact & appeared to be very jovial & light rather than grief-stricken as they felt.
It wasn’t long before others noticed Rick’s strange behavior & gossip began to spread around town as people speculated that Rick had something to do with Connie’s murder. They saw him out at bars, having dinner during the holidays & hosting get-togethers at the house.
Connie’s closest friends couldn’t accept that Rick could be responsible for his wife’s murder as they reflected that the couple always had the type of marriage that others envied. During parties, Rick would dote on Connie, making sure she had a drink or a plate of food. If she was having a bad day, he would reach out to her friends & encourage them to take her out so she could have fun. They often went out on double dates & could never fathom he would have done something to hurt his wife, killing the mother of his children in cold blood two days before Christmas.
Meanwhile, detectives plugged on & from the beginning, began to notice red flags popping up. While they interviewed Rick in the hospital for seven hours after the home invasion, they noticed inconsistencies in his recollection of events. He first mentioned that he only heard Connie get shot, but shortly thereafter, he said he actually saw her get shot. On a third instance, he indicated that he wasn’t even sure if she’d been shot at all. The biggest red flag was the fact that the timeline was not in line with when Rick placed the 911 call.
Rick told investigators that after he turned his car around, he was back home at about 9 am & Connie arrived maybe five minutes later, yet the 911 call wasn’t placed until 10:19 am. According to Rick, everything happened very quickly; he came inside, heard a noise upstairs & when he went to investigate, he found the intruder in his home. Only moments later, Connie came through the garage door & a chase to the basement began, yet an hour in the timeline was missing based on the 911 call.
As detectives voiced these inconsistencies, Rick replied, I did not shoot Connie. I’m going to stick with my truth. When he was asked why he didn’t react to the intruder pointing a gun at his wife, he said, I reached up as fast as I could. I froze. I was weak & could not defend Connie. I froze like hell. When they asked him why he hadn’t checked on his wife after she’d been shot, he said he couldn’t do anything to save her & the detectives pointed out the fact that he managed to drag himself up the basement stairs. They found it odd that he hadn’t instinctively moved to just the next room over to check on his wife. He said that he was fearful that the intruder would come back to shoot him. During the entire six hours that the detectives interviewed Rick in the hospital, they couldn’t help but notice that the man didn’t shed a single tear.
Rick’s family chalked the inconsistencies up to the fact that he had been traumatized that day so his memory was hazy. According to Rick’s father, as they were leaving the hospital, his son mentioned that the police believed he was responsible for Connie’s death. Because they believed that police were jumping to conclusions, Rick’s family felt that police had tunnelvision & failed to pursue other suspects.
Soon, Rick hired a defense attorney & time continued to go by & still, no suspects had been named & no arrests had been made. It was officially the first anniversary of Connie’s murder on December 23, 2016 & her friends & family felt dismayed that her killer had not been brought to justice. By this point, Connie’s closest friends firmly believe that Rick was responsible.
Behind the scenes, investigators continued to work the case & gather information. On the day of Connie’s murder, police had located Rick’s wallet outside the basement door that led to the outside of the house. K9 units were utilized to track the scent & the dog, Rocky, led the officer from the basement door to the wallet & around to the front of the house. This told investigators that the intruder hadn’t fled away from the house & instead, circled back inside. Once back inside, Rocky quickly tracked to Rick, who was receiving medical attention. This told the officer that it was Rick who had walked this path.
Surprised by the dog’s movements, the officer ran Rocky back through to double check & this time, he followed the same trail from the basement to the front of the house, but this time, Rocky took a left turn & tracked to the ambulance. This is where Rick was now being treated.
Detectives also didn’t note any signs of what would be found in a typical home invasion. The closet where Rick allegedly confronted the intruder was discovered neat & orderly, the built-in drawers were closed & Connie’s jewelry, which sat within plain view, was untouched. Because the closet was so long & narrow, it would have been impossible for an intruder to get past Rick to run in Connie’s direction. The intruder also came to the house without his own weapon.
On April 14, 2017, about a year & a half after Connie’s murder, neighbors noted police cars yet again at the Dabate home, this time to arrest Rick. After his arrest, the boys were sent to live with Connie’s older sister. Meanwhile, his family stood by his side, believing in his innocence.
It wasn’t long after the arrest when word of an affair began to leak around town. On the day of Connie’s murder investigators learned about a long-term affair that Rick had been having with a woman who became pregnant in May 2015, their relationship having spanned off & on for seven years.
Rick initially told investigators that he & Connie wanted to have another baby, but because of health issues, it hadn’t happened. They had a friend, Sara Ganzer, who was single & wanted to have a baby & Connie & Rick planned to donate sperm to this friend. According to Rick, had they pursued the process in a typical, medical manner, it would have been extremely expensive so they decided to take the old fashioned approach & Rick would just sleep with Sara. According to Rick, it had actually been Connie who suggested the arrangement. He said that it was a win-win situation since he & Connie wanted another child, but they were so busy so this way, the three of them would co-parent the child together.
Sara Ganzer had been friends with Rick since middle school & even did a reading during Rick & Connie’s wedding. Sara & Rick’s baby was due in late February 2016 & Rick didn’t think that Connie had confided in anyone about their arrangement.
As the conversation continued, Rick admitted that in the beginning, there had been cheating & then finally admitted that Sara’s pregnancy had not been expected or planned & Connie & Sara didn’t interact with each other. Connie’s friends were stunned when they learned the news & were sure that their friend had been fully unaware of the affair. Connie was a strong willed person who would never have sat by & kept quiet had she known her husband was cheating on her.
Review of Connie & Rick’s electronic devices proved that there was tension & animosity within their relationship. One year before Connie was murdered, she made an entry on December 4, 2014 in the Notes section of her phone which she titled, Why I want a divorce. Here, she indicated that Rick often took money from accounts that don’t belong to him, he fails to keep his promises, allows the children to watch TV for hours at a time, he lies, doesn’t take responsibility & acts like a child. Only one day before Connie’s murder, she angrily texted Rick on December 22 & confronted him about their expensive cable bill because Rick added sports channels to their plan without her knowledge & she was left to clean up his mess.
According to Sara, she & Rick reconnected one year earlier after her divorce in 2014 & confirmed that their relationship became romantic in the spring before Connie’s murder. She told Rick that she was pregnant on June 18, 2015 & by August, he claimed to have met with an attorney to start the divorce process. As the months passed by, Sara indicated that she only occasionally spoke with him about the status of the divorce & when she did, he only told her that it was moving forward.
Based on what Rick told Sara, the divorce was going to be mutual & Connie had no idea that she was pregnant. The papers were set to be served to Connie either the week before or the week of her murder, but Rick didn’t plan on telling Connie about Sara’s pregnancy until after Christmas. Sara & Rick were set to meet up on the day of Connie’s murder to exchange Christmas presents & discuss his divorce.
The trial was delayed & in the meantime, years went by & Rick was free after posting a $1 million bail. Connie’s family was disgusted that he was allowed to go on living his life. Meanwhile, Connie’s father passed away from cancer in 2019, unable to see his daughter’s killer receive justice.
COVID further delayed the trial that was set to begin in March 2020. Rick hired a new defense attorney after his original attorney passed away. The trial didn’t start until April 2022, almost six & a half years after Connie was murdered.
Sara Ganzer took the stand to testify & indicated that before Connie’s murder, Rick assured her that he was going to divorce his wife. She maintained that she never gave Rick an ultimatum when he didn’t take the steps to follow through with this. Their romantic relationship had been on & off for years, most recently back on in May 2015, seven months before Connie was killed. She realized that she was pregnant one month later, but indicated that she planned to raise the child on her own as she didn’t want to be the cause of the break up of the Dabate family. However, she did grow frustrated with his back & forth statements about the subject & ultimately hoped that he & Connie would divorce.
After Connie’s death, Rick’s relationship with Sara continued. He wasn’t present for the birth of their daughter, but they did co-parent their daughter for a time & resumed their romantic relationship sometime in 2017 or 2018. At the time of the trial, Sara indicated that they were no longer together & in October 2021, she filed a child custody application to seek sole custody of their daughter that included a parenting plan & visitation schedule.
During the trial, the jury heard of the intimate messages sent between Rick & Sara in the months leading up to Connie’s murder, where Rick referred to Sara as my little love nugget. Sara seemed unwilling to assist the prosecution & came off as almost hostile during her testimony.
A key part of the case ended up being the data from Connie’s Fitbit which investigators had found clipped to the waistband of her sweatpants. The device assisted in solidifying the timeline of Connie’s last day. When all of her electronic data was reviewed, investigators could see that she first utilized her phone to message friends upon waking. Soon after, she got dressed & clipped her Fitbit to the waistband of her pants which began recording her movements, steps & stationery moments at 7:52 am.
As she got the kids ready, Connie sent additional texts with friends & got in her car to the gym. While she drove, a period of inactivity was reflected on her Fitbit. Surveillance showed Connie arriving at the YMCA at 8:53 am where she stayed for only a short time after realizing that her spinning class had been canceled because of the holiday schedule. When she left at about 9:08 am, she drove straight back home, her Fitbit again reflecting a ten-minute period of inactivity. At about 9:20 am, her Fitbit began moving again as she arrived & climbed out of her car. A neighbor of Rick & Connie’s later indicated that they saw Rick back his car into his driveway at 8:20 am after he dropped the kids off at the school bus.
According to her electronic devices, Connie sporadically moved throughout the house which corresponded with her online activity as she utilized Facebook between 9:40-9:46 am & posted videos from her iPhone.
This data conflicts with Rick’s timeline of events as he indicated that as he heard the garage door open & Connie walked through the door, he immediately began yelling down to her, warning her of the intruder. According to Rick, this happened at 9 am, whereas her steps continued to register on her Fitbit until her last movement was registered at 10:05 am which gave an hour & five minute time discrepancy.
When investigators looked into Rick’s electronic footprint from that day, more lies came to light when they discovered that he had never even left the property that morning. This was in direct contrast to the story he told about leaving & driving for about ten minutes when he suddenly turned around after realizing that he forgot his laptop & started receiving notifications about his home’s alarm system. His data told investigators that he stayed home after Connie left to take the kids to school & went to the gym. He was in the house with his wife for about an hour after she came back home, likely working up the nerve to make his attack.
At a little after 10 am, Rick finally lured his wife down to the basement where he shot her twice & then staged his own attack. Rick’s defense attorney argued reasonable doubt & pointed out the fact that Rick Dabate has zero history of any violence. He also indicated that the electronic devices used in this case were not designed to solve murder cases & should not be trusted despite the fact that the picture came together from multiple sources; Connie’s use of her phone, social media as well as movement on her Fitbit.
The defense presented DNA that was found at the crime scene that confirmed Rick’s story of an intruder & pointed out unknown DNA in six key places including the primary bedroom closet, down to the safe in the basement that held the gun, the gun itself, inside Rick’s shirt & the door that exited the basement. When the inconsistencies in Rick’s timeline were presented, the defense chalked it up to him misremembering due to the trauma he had survived.
Rick took the stand in his own defense as he recounted the events of the day that Connie was murdered. He acknowledged that he had cheated on his wife & was aware that Sara was pregnant with his child. He admits that he was in love with two women & lied to his wife about nights he was working late or playing cards with the guys.
Rick confirmed what Sara had testified that she never pressured him to make a decision & would keep their affair & subsequent child a secret, raising the child on her own if he chose to stay with his wife. Sources indicate that Rick had also been involved in a second extramarital affair, but the judge barred this information from the trial.
Rick said that as he reached the basement, he heard a loud bang & saw a flash & then saw Connie fall motionless to the ground. He spoke of the torture he sustained at the hands of the intruder before he finally fled their home & maintained that he had nothing to do with his wife’s death.
In 2015, Rick told investigators that as he came back home, he heard a noise upon entering the house. This time, in 2022, he said that since he’d already messaged his boss about running late, he decided to relax & veg out a bit, taking his time before heading back to work. At some point, he heard something upstairs. The prosecution argued that he changed his version of events now in order to match the known timeline of when Connie was murdered because Rick never imagined that Connie’s Fitbit would contradict what he’d originally told police.
The prosecutor argued that Rick came up with the plan in order to get rid of his wife so that he could be with his mistress & unborn child in a story that potentially made him look like a hero who tried to save his wife. Shortly before Connie was murdered, she & Rick took a romantic weekend getaway to Vermont. After Connie posted photos from the trip to her Facebook account, Sara could clearly see that Rick was not even close to the process of divorcing his wife. With this, the only way out for Rick was to murder his wife. This would allow him to avoid any financial losses or custody arrangements.
The trial lasted five weeks & on May 10, 2022, after the jury deliberated for less than a couple hours, Rick Dabate was found guilty of first-degree murder, tampering with physical evidence & providing a false statement.
Two months later, he was sentenced to 65 years in prison. Connie’s loved ones felt a tremendous sense of relief that after six years of turmoil, they were finally getting justice for Connie. Numerous victim impact statements were read & Connie’s sister described Rick as a killer & a thief who had betrayed her sister & her family. Connie’s other sister spoke of the Christmas present she had bought & wrapped for her sister back in 2015 before her murder that remains wrapped at home.
Because technology was key to this investigation, Connie’s case has often been referred to as the Fitbit trial. Her family wants the focus to be centered on the issue of domestic violence & the fact that Connie was taken in a planned, cold-blooded murder by a person she loved, trusted & built her life around.
References:
- News 8: Debate trial: Former mistress take the stand
- News 8: Suspect in Fitbit murder trial takes the stand
- Distractify: How did a woman’s Fitbit help catch her killer? ‘Dateline’ has the story
- Daily Beast: Guilty! Two-timing Connecticut hubby is undone by murdered wife’s Fitbit
- Dabate arrest warrant
- Apple Podcasts: Dateline NBC: The Secrets of Birch View Drive
- Yahoo News: Mother of Dabate’s child said she didn’t want to break up family
- Dakota Digital Review: The Fitbit murder: Digital evidence solves homicide
