02/24/02 Forget About The Greenwich Time: Independant Journalist Kevin F. McMurray Says There Is A Possible Break In The Margolis Case?

A source in the Port Chester Police Department (PCPD) revealed that a retired detective from the department will be speaking with detectives of the Greenwich Police Department (GPD) on Monday, February 25th, regarding an arrest of a former PCPD officer on charges of pedophilia in Texas.

The former officer in custody of Texas authorities had links to the unsolved 1984 murder of 13-year old Matthew Margolies in the Glenville section of Greenwich. The retired PCPD detective who will be meeting with GPD detectives was involved in the case almost 18 years ago.

The arrested pedophile, Roger Bates, was a close family friend and neighbor of a juvenile who was questioned by GPD about his whereabouts and knowledge of the events of Labor Day weekend 1984 when the Margolies boy disappeared from near his home in the Pemberwick section of town. Matthew Margolies’s body was found less than a mile from where he was last seen on a wooded hill overlooking Pemberwick Road five days later. Although never officially acknowledged the Margolies boy’s murder has long been considered sexual driven in nature. The juvenile suspect had a police record and was known to frequent and fish in the area of the Byram River where Matthew Margolies lived. The suspect was also a known acquaintance of the victim and of other juveniles questioned in the disappearance and murder of the Margolies boy.

Bates, a PCPD officer at the time, was an obstacle in the questioning of the Port Chester suspect. Allegedly, it was Bates who convinced the suspect and his family from having him submit to a polygraph given by the GPD whose focus was the Margolies murder. It has been suspected that Bates has knowledge that could be useful in the pursuit of an arrest of a suspect in the crime.

Speculation is that the current GPD detectives in charge of the long dormant Margolies case will travel to Texas to interview the former Port Chester police officer. Conceivably, in exchange for information on the Margolies case, some leniency might be extended to Bates on his Texas charges. Bates is looking at a long sentence in the Texas penal system as a pedophile.