04/01/01 BOSTON GLOBE: Greenwich's other murder 1984 case reopened amid spotlight on Moxley slaying

By Lisa Prevost, Boston Globe Correspondent

GREENWICH, Conn. - Maryann Margolies has long accepted that the unsolved murder of her son can't compete for public attention with the fatal bludgeoning of fellow Greenwich teen Martha Moxley.

The killings were startlingly similar: Moxley was just 15 when she was found dead in the backyard of her family's estate in affluent Greenwich. Matthew Margolies was 13 when he was slain near his home in the Glenville neighborhood.

But the media appeal of the Moxley case has - as far as the Margolies investigation was long concerned - made all the difference in the world.

While Margolies was raised in an unremarkable working-class neighborhood, Moxley lived and died in exclusive Belle Haven.

More importantly, her suspected killer is her former neighbor, Michael Skakel, a nephew of Ethel Kennedy.

''The Moxley case has gotten the amount of attention it has primarily because of the Kennedy connection,'' said Maryann Margolies, a nursing director who still lives here. ''And that's a fact of life. That's reality.''

But more than 16 years after his murder, Matthew Margolies is about to get equal time.

Though they appear to have no new evidence to go on, Greenwich police and the state's attorney's cold case unit have come back to the Margolies case - a case that has long been known here as Greenwich's other unsolved murder.

Greenwich Police Chief Peter Robbins, who was a lieutenant detective when Margolies was murdered, has vowed to bring the case to some conclusion. The police recently enlisted renowned forensics expert Dr. Henry Lee to reexamine the evidence.

Though it's hardly common for police to reopen an investigation after so many years, the media frenzy driven by Skakel's arrest and impending trial - 25 years after Moxley's death - made it increasingly difficult for police to leave the Margolies murder alone.

The local newspaper, Greenwich Time, turned up the heat on police last year when it published a severe editorial: ''Another Old Murder Waits To Be Solved.''

And a local man has helped raise the Margolies murder's profile by maintaining the Web site www.matthewmargolies.com.

Greenwich native Tom Alessi launched the site a few years ago because, he says, he was frustrated by a widespread lack of attention to Margolies's murder.

The Margolies site averages an impressive 1,000 hits a day, although they may be primarily click-through traffic from Alessi's more popular sibling site: www.marthamoxley.com.

''I thought it was sort of wrong that there was all this interest in Martha's case and there was still a second murder that was just as important and not getting as much media attention,'' he said.

By reopening the Margolies case, police are hoping to capitalize on media interest in the Moxley murder, a case that has been profiled on television's ''Unsolved Murders'' and the subject of or thinly veiled in salacious novels.

At a press conference last month, the Greenwich police more than doubled the reward they had been offering for new information in the Margolies case, from $20,000 to $50,000. They also established a hotline for tips (203-532-1949), and brought Maryann Margolies forward to make an emotive plea.

''The media attention is already there because of the Moxley case,'' said James Walters, the Greenwich Police Department's deputy chief for criminal investigations. ''It sure helped the turnout at the press conference.''

But the odds of solving such an old case are not favorable.

Obtaining enough evidence to secure an arrest and conviction is very difficult in any cold case, acknowledged Deputy Chief State's Attorney Christopher Morano.

''We are very clear when we meet with victims' families that we don't have any more answers than anyone else,'' Morano said. ''But what we do have is time to look into the case.''

The state's cold case unit has obtained arrest warrants in seven of the 15 cases it is working on, he said. So far, only one of the arrest warrants has led to a conviction.

Dr. Harry Bonell, chief deputy medical examiner in San Diego and a consulting expert for the national advocacy group Parents of Murdered Children, found that as few as 10 to 15 percent of cold cases are ever solved. But those 10 to 15 percent, he said, provide crucial hope to grieving families.

On Aug. 31, 1984, Matthew Margolies was stabbed repeatedly with a boning knife and suffocated with dirt that was forced down his throat. Five days passed before police found the body in a wooded area not far from a nearby river where he often went fishing.

Though police had a roster of suspects, no arrest was made.

Officials now hope advances in forensic science will enable them to identify Margolies's killer. ''We've always felt the case was solvable,'' Walters said. ''We believe the DNA analysis is going to be instrumental.''

According to Walters, work on the Margolies case slowed to a stop between 1990 and 1996.

Then, in 1998 - about a year after Robbins became chief and about the same time a one-man grand jury was appointed to consider evidence in the Moxley case - Robbins assigned two detectives to go through the 1,000-page Margolies file. Last November, the Greenwich police asked the cold case unit to join the probe.

As with the Moxley case, Greenwich police have been long and loudly accused of mishandling the initial investigation. In a 1986 report, an outside consultant faulted the Greenwich force for, among other things, failing to assign a detective to the case until after Margolies's body was found - and then only assigning one detective to view the crime scene.

''I think that if the police had had more experience and had involved the detective division, and had listened more closely to the things we had to say, they would certainly have not gone for that length of time without finding him,'' Maryann Margolies said in a recent interview.

But from Morano's perspective, the Greenwich police may have salvaged the case - albeit years later - with their conscientious handling of the evidence.

All crucial pieces of evidence were sealed after they were last viewed in 1984. All police reports are in the file.

And, rather presciently, the Greenwich police took hair samples from their suspects. Considering that in 1984 few in law enforcement had ever heard of DNA analysis, it was either far-sighted or inadvertently fortunate, Morano said.

Maryann Margolies says the ups and downs in the investigation of her son's murder have become increasingly hard on her.

This time, she says, she needs the case to be either solved or resolved.

''It's more painful each time it resurfaces than it was at the time of the murder,'' she said. ''With the passage of time, you've started to get your life back in some semblance of order and normality.''

And while legal closure may not mean emotional closure, ''it has to be less painful.''

03/09/01 Reward doubles; officials look to DNA for clues in '84 murder

By J.A.Johnson Jr. - Greenwich Time

Matthew Margolies' mother stepped to the microphone-adorned podium, looked straight at the television cameras and pleaded for help in finding her son's killer.

"Please, I beg you to help me find some level of closure," Maryann Margolies said yesterday at a press conference convened by law enforcement officials to elicit the public's assistance in their renewed push to solve the 1984 homicide.

Deputy Chief State's Attorney Christopher Morano, who since November has headed a combined state and local "cold case squad" that is probing the murder, announced that the state has more than doubled its share of the reward money for the Margolies case. He said Gov. John Rowland authorized an increase from $20,000 to $50,000. With $10,000 in private funds, the reward now totals $60,000.

Officials also announced that anyone with information about the murder can call a newly established 24-hour telephone tip line: (203) 532-1949.

In addition to unveiling measures to elicit greater public cooperation, Morano revealed that technicians at the Connecticut Forensic Science Laboratory in Meriden are preparing to use the latest in DNA testing on physical evidence from the case.

The evidence includes hair that Margolies' killer may have left at the crime scene.

The testing will be done at the direction of retired state public safety commissioner Dr. Henry Lee, one of the nation's preeminent forensic experts.

Of Lee's involvement in the Margolies case, Morano said, "That makes me the luckiest cold case prosecutor in the country."

While cautioning against unduly high expectations, Morano said he is optimistic about a positive outcome of the renewed probe because the original investigation was well-documented by police and physical evidence has been well preserved.

"All relevant and crucial pieces of evidence have been sealed since 1984 and have not been pawed by well-meaning individuals," Morano said, adding that the integrity of the evidence can ward off possible future claims of tampering or contamination.

Morano, the state's second highest-ranking prosecutor, said the Margolies case is unique for an old homicide case in that police had taken and retained DNA samples from suspects during the initial investigation.

"We have a veritable database, for lack of a better word, of suspects," he said.

In an interview last week, Lee said cold case investigators collected additional DNA samples from suspects who voluntarily supplied hair and saliva, and search warrants may be sought to obtain DNA from uncooperative suspects.

Margolies was killed Aug. 31, 1984, in a wooded area off Pemberwick Road, not far from his home on Pilgrim Drive, in a neighborhood of the Pemberwick section of Glenville known as "The Valley."

According to the autopsy report, Margolies had been stabbed more than a dozen times and was suffocated by dirt shoved down his throat. The boy's body was concealed under a pile of brush, rocks and leaves and, despite an extensive search, was not found for five days.

Eight people who either lived or worked in the Glenville area were identified as suspects during the initial investigation, police said, and all remain under suspicion.

The case was actively investigated through 1988, but as the killer's trail grew colder, leads trickled to a stop.

In early 1999, two Greenwich detectives were assigned to conduct a complete reinvestigation of the case. After a year of preliminary work, which included a careful review of the nearly 700-page case file, the detectives began conducting interviews in March 2000. Since then, state forensic scientists have been reviewing physical evidence in the case and DNA testing is expected to begin soon.

More leads surfaced after Greenwich Time published a five-part series about the Margolies case in early September. A month later, Greenwich police applied to have the case assigned to the state cold case unit.

Police Chief Peter Robbins said yesterday that the Margolies case file has grown to include more than 1,000 pages of police reports.

"The Greenwich Police Department has never diminished its resolve to solve this case and bring closure to the loving family members over their loss," he said.

Yesterday's press conference, Robbins said, "is yet another stage in the process to bring this case to what is hoped will be a successful solution."

But with her daughter, mother and husband looking on, Maryann Margolies held center stage yesterday as she remembered her slain son.

"He was respectful, considerate, loving and caring," the 61-year-old Pemberwick woman said. "He valued life and knew how to live it. Matthew brought us much happiness. He loved to joke and have fun.

"I wasn't able to hold him as he was dying, to take away his fear and ease his pain. What can I do? I can continue to offer him dignity and see that justice takes place. I have always felt that someone knows something and is not coming forward. Please, I beg you to help me find some level of closure. Look into your heart and soul. It takes courage to do what is right."

In addition to using the tip line, anyone with information about the Margolies case can call Greenwich police Detectives Timothy Duff, at 622-8080, and Gary Hoffkins, at 622-8037, or e-mail the state cold case squad at cold.case@po.state.ct.us .

11/01/00 State unit takes up Margolies case

By J.A. Johnson Jr.

A state investigative unit that specializes in old, unsolved homicides has agreed to help the Greenwich Police Department in its reinvestigation of the 1984 Matthew Margolies murder case.

Police Chief Peter Robbins yesterday said his request for assistance from the state's "cold case squad" was accepted in early October, and a meeting was planned for later this week at which local and state detectives will discuss possible strategies.

"I think they think it can be solved, so we're happy about that," Robbins said of the unit's involvement with the Margolies case. "We'll know better where things are going after we meet this week."

News of this latest development in the long unsolved murder mystery was greeted enthusiastically by the mother of the 13-year-old Glenville boy who was fatally stabbed and suffocated in woods less than a mile from his Pilgrim Drive home on Aug. 31, 1984.

"I think it's a very positive move," Maryann Margolies said yesterday. "The Greenwich police are asking for a fresh pair of eyes to look over the material, to look over the evidence, and maybe they'll see something or find something by looking at it from a different perspective."

The cold case unit operates out of the chief state's attorney's office in Rocky Hill, under the direction of Deputy Chief State's Attorney Christopher Morano. The unit is divided into several squads, each supervised by a prosecutor and staffed by state inspectors who are seasoned homicide investigators.

When a local police department refers a case to the state unit, it also provides at least one, but usually two, of its detectives.

"The goal is to combine all those resources to give cold cases a thorough examination from all different angles," Morano said. "It's a team effort."

Sgt. Timothy Duff and Detective Gary Hoffkins, the two Greenwich officers who began a reinvestigation of the Margolies murder earlier this year, will be working closely with the state unit, Robbins said.

Morano, a native of Greenwich who is now the second-highest ranking prosecutor in the state, cautioned against any undue expectations that the Margolies case will be solved as a result of his unit's involvement.

"I want to stress that this is going to be a long and tedious process, and a majority of cold cases are not solved," he said.

Morano said that only seven of the more than 20 cold cases his unit has examined since its formation in 1998 have resulted in arrests.

Nevertheless, he said the cold case unit agrees to take on an investigation only when there appears to be a chance to solve it.

"It has to be something where we believe there are areas where that can be examined, say, forensically or suspect-wise," Morano said. "There has to be a real reason to rehash the case. If something's already been rehashed to death, and there's no fodder for further investigation, then probably we won't get involved."

Neither state or local officials would cite specific reasons why the Margolies case was a good candidate for acceptance by the state unit.

However, it was previously reported by Greenwich Time that new leads and potential witnesses had surfaced after the newspaper published a series of stories about the Margolies case in September. The stories, based on interviews, the autopsy report and police records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, contained information about the murder, suspects and other facts never before made public.

It was also learned from police that some of the new leads detectives were pursuing involved information that one of eight "key" suspects - a teenager who lived near Margolies and possibly held a grudge against the victim - may have ingested multiple doses of a hallucinogenic drug the day of the murder. Originally thought to have been sexually motivated, police are now examining whether the murder may have been committed by someone under the influence of drugs.

Robbins and Morano also indicated that the combined state and local effort will involve testing of physical evidence by forensic scientists, but they would not provide details.

10/08/00 Police probe role of drugs in Margolies murder

By J.A. Johnson Jr. - Greenwich Time

Investigators of a long unsolved Greenwich murder are examining the role drugs may have played in the killing of 13-year-old Matthew Margolies in 1984.

The detectives who began a re-investigation of the case earlier this year are looking into information that one of the suspects may have been under the influence of a hallucinogen on the afternoon of Aug. 31, 1984, the day Margolies was tortured and brutally murdered in the woods about a mile from his Pilgrim Drive home.

Police last month revealed detectives were tracking down new leads that could help them to pin down the whereabouts of one or more suspects the day of the crime, but they would not elaborate. Greenwich Time has learned that some of those leads involved information that a suspect may have ingested multiple doses of mescaline the day Matthew was slain.

Deputy Chief James Walters, commanding officer of the Greenwich Police Department's Criminal Investigations Division, refused comment when asked about the role drugs may have played in the murder. However, he did say that investigators suspect the crime may not have been premeditated.

"There is the possibility that the initial intent of the perpetrator was not murder, but it got to that stage as things spiraled out of control," Walters said this week.

One premeditation theory is that the murder may have been sexually motivated, possibly committed by a pedophile who knew Matthew and targeted him. Although there was no evidence of a sexual assault, that Matthew had been stripped to his under shorts and died from an "overkill" of multiple stab wounds and asphyxiation were among the reasons investigators had considered an FBI profiler's theory that the crime was sexual in nature.

Police Chief Peter Robbins seemed to discount that theory last month, when he said a sexually motivated murderer would likely feel compelled to kill again, but that "no similar crimes have been committed anywhere else" before or after the Margolies murder.

Another theory investigators explored is that the murder was not premeditated, but began as a confrontation that rapidly escalated because the assailant was both angry at the victim and under the influence of drugs.

In addition to being stabbed over a dozen times, mostly in the upper torso but also in the neck, Matthew had dirt and a stick forced down his throat while still alive. He was strangled with his own T-shirt and one of his socks was used to gag his mouth.

The teenager's body was concealed beneath a pile of rocks, tree branches and leaves on a wooded hillside between Pemberwick Road and Greenway Drive. The murder also occurred at that location, police said.

Charles Bahn, a forensic psychologist who reviewed the Margolies case for Greenwich Time, said the nature of the attack pointed more toward someone seeking to settle a score with the victim than being sexually motivated.

"There are patterns consistent with different kinds of motivations, and very often a very large number of multiple wounds - 30, 40 stab wounds, or more - implies a motive to obliterate an individual, wanting to literally cut them into pieces," the John Jay College of Criminal Justice professor said. "In certain sexual crimes, where the sexuality that occurred is repugnant to the doer, it produces feelings of disgust and shame, and one way to deal with that is to obliterate the victim.

"But you don't have that in this case," added Bahn, who has consulted on homicide cases for the New York City Police Department and lectures on psychological profiling of criminals at the FBI National Academy. "The number of wounds and their locations implies not only some torturing, but a revenge motivation, with the person's thinking being the victim should hurt as much as he made me hurt."

Bahn based his conclusions on details from news accounts, as well as details from the Margolies murder case file and autopsy report that were recently obtained by Greenwich Time. An edited version of the case file was given to the newspaper in a settlement brokered by the state Freedom of Information Commission.

Of the eight "key" suspects Greenwich police identified in their extensive investigation of the Margolies murder, one is thought to have had a possible revenge motive. According to police, the then-17-year-old suspect may have harbored a grudge against Matthew for having informed on him for cultivating a marijuana patch in the Glenville neighborhood known as The Valley, where both the victim and suspect lived.

According to Bahn, the dirt the killer forced down Matthew's throat may be symbolic of the motive.

"One way of looking at it is the victim was regarded as a person whose mouth was filled with dirt, who said bad and nasty things," the psychologist said. "But there's another way, and it has a semantic relationship: 'You opened your mouth, and now I'm going to make you eat dirt.' "

John Douglas, then a special agent with the FBI Behavioral Science Unit, concluded in a psychological profile he developed for Greenwich police in October 1984 that Matthew knew his attacker, and that the killer "demonstrated extensive personal anger and rage."

The suspect who police believe may have had a revenge motive, Greenwich Time has learned, is being examined by investigators for possibly having taken two or more "hits" of mescaline the afternoon of the murder, which police pinpoint between 6 and 6:30 p.m.

Mescaline, the chemical derivative of peyote, is a powerful hallucinogen that induces a sense of unreality, according to Patrick McAuliffe, executive director of the Connecticut Renaissance Inc. drug treatment program. The effects of mescaline are unpredictable, and vary with individual users, he said, but high doses of the drug can cause violent behavior.

"The wound pattern" on Matthew's body "suggests not only a revenge motive, but also someone who was out of control," Bahn said. "If taking multiple doses of mescaline, (the killer) may have been living in a fantasy world, and people on drugs have feelings of personal grandiosity and lose inhibitions against certain types of behavior."

If Matthew had been murdered out of revenge by someone high on a hallucinogen, then remarkable parallels could be drawn between that crime and another that occurred in New York two months earlier.

In June 1984, in the Long Island community of Northport, 17-year-old Ricky Kasso was reputed to be holding a grudge against friend Gary Lauwers, also 17, whom he had accused of stealing drugs. The prosecutor in the case, William Keahon, said Kasso and co-defendant James Troiano, 18, lured Lauwers into a wooded area of Northport in order to confront him about the theft.

"They had a camp fire going, and they got the victim up there by telling him they were going to share drugs with him," said Keahon, a former Suffolk County district attorney. Keahon said the confrontation quickly got out of hand because Kasso and Troiano were "tripping" on mescaline.

Keahon said the incident began with Kasso and Troiano yelling at Lauwers, but then Kasso began beating the victim and then used a pocket knife to repeatedly stab Lauwers, gouging out the victim's eyes in the process. Lauwers' body, which was concealed in a shallow grave covered with leaves, was not found until two weeks later.

"They did want to do something to Mr. Lauwers, but not with the intention of killing him," said Keahon, now in private practice in Islandia, N.Y.

The former prosecutor said the multiple doses of mescaline Kasso had taken influenced his aggressive and bizarre behavior. "From the experts I spoke with, even a small amount takes you out of reality," he said. "It releases any inhibitions you might have as a human being."

Kasso died two days after his arrest, when he hung himself in his jail cell. Troiano, charged as an accomplice, was acquitted at trial.

Troiano's attorney, Eric Naiburg, agreed the initial intent of the confrontation had not been to murder Lauwers, and when things got out of control it was unclear whether Kasso realized what he was doing when stabbing the victim.

"I remember my client asking me, 'Mr. Naiburg, when the trees are melting and the stars are racing across the sky, it's hard to know what's real and what's not,' " Naiburg said. "So you just don't know what their perceptions are. Were they killing a human being? You can't rely on what their perceptions were at the time."

John Hamilton, a licensed drug abuse counselor, said an encounter between a person high on mescaline and someone he perceives has wronged him has the potential for ending in violence.

"There is no doubt that whatever existing issues a person has can be greatly exacerbated by the mescaline," said Hamilton, senior vice president for the Stamford-based LMG Programs Inc. substance abuse treatment program. "The person might even become actively psychotic and lose control if the mescaline has exacerbated a pre-existing condition."

09/19/00 Press reports on Margolies case prompt new leads

By J.A. Johnson Jr. - Greenwich Time

The publication of newly released details about the murder of Glenville teenager Matthew Margolies nearly two decades ago has resulted in new and potentially valuable information, police said yesterday.

Those details, contained in a series of stories by Greenwich Time earlier this month, prompted some readers to come forward with previously unreported information about the activities of one or more suspects on Aug. 31, 1984, the day Margolies, 13, was believed to have been tortured and killed in a wooded area near the Byram River, according to police.

Police said a better understanding of a suspect's actions before and after the murder could help detectives more closely link a suspect to the crime. Few details about the new information were released.

The stories, based on 610 pages of police reports the newspaper obtained after filing a Freedom of Information Act complaint, gave the public the first detailed glimpse of the brutal nature of the murder and subsequent investigation, the most extensive Greenwich police said they had ever undertaken.

"It's generated a lot of activity for our investigators," Police Chief Peter Robbins said of the news articles. "We've gotten some new information from people we've heard from before, and other information has come from people we've never heard from."

Robbins would not be specific about the new information, except to say some of it concerned "the whereabouts at certain times" on the day of the murder of one or more of the eight suspects in the case.

The Margolies murder investigation was reactivated in March, when two detectives were assigned to the case on a full-time basis. According to Robbins, the detectives are now in the process of following up on the new information.

Greenwich Time had requested a copy of the Margolies murder case file from the Police Department in October, and when the request was denied a complaint was lodged with the Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission. The complaint was withdrawn in June, under an FOIC-brokered settlement, in which police agreed to release reports from the Margolies case file with suspects' names and other information deemed crucial for the investigation blacked out.

Although heavily edited, it is clear from the released police reports the investigation has focused on the following suspects:

A 32-year-old maintenance worker and suspected pedophile who a year before Margolies was murdered allegedly assaulted a 16-year-old male jogger in the woods along the Byram River.

A 16-year-old boy known as a neighborhood bully who knew the victim and had roughed up Margolies weeks before the murder. He was arrested a month before Margolies was murdered for allegedly assaulting another 13-year-old boy, and had pulled a knife on another neighborhood boy in an incident that went unreported.

A 16-year-old occasional fishing companion of Margolies who once told someone that he would like to "ditch that little bastard," and whose activities the day of the murder have been questioned by detectives.

A 17-year-old boy from Margolies' neighborhood who was thought to have had a revenge motive because he blamed the victim for telling police about marijuana plants he had grown and was subsequently arrested.

A 38-year-old man who worked in Glenville who might have been familiar with the victim and whose activities shortly after the murder were viewed as suspicious.

A suspected pedophile in his late 20s who drove a red pick-up truck similar to one witnesses said they saw near the crime scene just prior to Margolies' murder.

A 47-year-old man who had aroused the suspicion of state police while being questioned about a series of shootings along Interstate 95.

A man in his 50s who lived in Margolies' neighborhood and had a history of criminal violence.

09/16/00 Series renews talk of Margolies murder

By Cameron D. Martin - Greenwich Time

Sixteen years ago, residents regularly came together at Pemberwick X-Change to share information and commiserate in the wake of the murder of 13-year-old Matthew Margolies.

Last week, after publication of a four-part Greenwich Time series on the search for the boy, the discovery of his murder, and the investigation that followed, the unsolved murder was once again the focus of talk at the Pemberwick Road deli, as regulars discussed information previously unknown to them, according to owner Steve Pugliese.

"Everybody was trying to pull things from their memory banks, to see if they could make any new connections," said Pugliese, 47, who lives on Pemberwick Road, about one mile south of where Matthew's mutilated body was discovered on a wooded hillside Sept. 5, 1984.

Copies of last week's newspaper series sold out quickly at his store each morning, Pugliese said, as he and others read about previously unknown aspects of the story.

"I thought three suspects, not eight," said Pugliese, who thought he had gone to school with one of the suspects, who were described but not named by police. "I don't think anyone was aware there were that many suspects they could build a solid case against. It would seem they all had a means and a motive."

Greenwich police have said that is one of the reasons the case is so difficult to solve.

Matthew, well-known in his close-knit western Greenwich neighborhood known as "The Valley," disappeared Aug. 31, 1984. His body was discovered five days later beneath a pile of rocks, branches and leaves in a wooded area about a mile from his Pilgrim Drive home. He had been stripped to his undershorts, stabbed over a dozen times with a knife, and suffocated with dirt that was forced down his throat.

The brutal slaying of the teenager shocked the seemingly safe neighborhood and began a massive investigation. No arrests were made nor was a prime suspect publicly named. In recent years, the investigation slowed as all leads were exhausted and no new information developed.

Greenwich Time sought to take an in-depth look at the file in order to present a detailed, public summary of the case and the investigation. An agreement for release of the file was reached through the office of the Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission, and Greenwich Police opened much of the file while keeping some names and details confidential to protect its investigation.

In last week's four-part series, the description of eight suspects was made available to the public for the first time. Along with details of the brutal murder, the list of suspects, although they were nameless, heightened awareness of the crime within the Pemberwick community, Pugliese said.

No new information in the Margolies case has been announced by Greenwich police since the conclusion of the series, and Police Chief Peter Robbins did not return calls seeking comment for this story.

Yet reference to the case by renowned criminal forensic scientist Dr. Henry Lee during a speech at Greenwich High School Monday, and other information - mostly in the form of sentiments and condolences posted on the Margolies Web site - keeps the case fresh in the minds of residents.

"My daughter was over at Hay Day (Country Market) in Riverside last week, and there were some people there who were talking about it, and commenting about how they didn't know the whole case had gone to the extent that it had," Judy Moretti, 58, a longtime Pemberwick resident, said Wednesday. "I think most people outside our neighborhood remembered it as a kid missing, not what came afterwards."

On Monday, Dr. Lee told a Greenwich High School crowd that trace evidence found at the scene of Matthew Margolies' murder could yield a connection to a suspect. Lee, who until April served as Connecticut's public safety commissioner and has been involved in the renewed investigation through his work at the state crime lab, declined to say what that evidence might be.

"What was found at the murder site I call trace or transfer evidence," Lee said Monday. "Sometimes that can be very good and you can make a connection. But I can't really discuss any active case."

Town residents, from Pemberwick in particular, need time to absorb the information made available to them recently, Moretti said.

"It's been a good wake-up call for the public," Moretti said. "I think we have to sift through things and see if anyone remembers anything."

Matthew Margolies' mother, Maryann, said Wednesday that in the past week she has received numerous messages posted on the Web site devoted to the case of her son's murder, www.MatthewMargolies.com. The public, she said, is more aware of the case since the recent release of information.

"I think that there's a heightened awareness in the general public of what's happened, and that's good," Margolies said. "I certainly remain optimistic to come to some sort of closure on this and intend to see things through."

One message posted to the Web site, from a Greenwich woman named "Lisa," reads: "We all need to back off the Greenwich Police Department a little bit. I am sure though it is 16 years later, that they have a pretty good idea as to who murdered Matthew. I think they just lack the evidence.

"With forensic science as it is today, they may already be running tests they were not able to do in 1984. Trust in the fact that there are people out there who know things the tiniest things that may help and trust that they are speaking up.

"Trust that the Greenwich Police Department are the only ones who can help Maryann now the only ones who can avenge Matthew's death. Let's pray for the Greenwich Police Department as well and wish the nightmare to its end."

07/05/98 New probe of 14-year-old Margolies murder begins

By J.A. Johnson Jr. - Greenwich Time

The renewed investigation into the unsolved 1984 murder of 13-year-old Glenville resident Matthew Margolies is under way.

After a recent review of the extensive but dormant Margolies case file, a Greenwich detective began conducting interviews two weeks ago to officially launch the renewed murder probe.

"We've started some interviews, Detective Division Captain James Walters said Thursday. He would not disclose whether those questioned included suspects. According to police, more than 60 people were initially identified as possible suspects, a number that was whittled down to about a dozen, some of whom remain under suspicion.

The reinvestigation of the Margolies case was announced in May, when Police Chief Peter Robbins revealed his department was planning to launch an all-out effort to find out who nearly 14 years ago sadistically murdered Margolies and buried him in a shallow grave beside the Byram River.

Though police followed up on occasional leads in the case, the murder of the only son of a working-class family has not been as actively investigated as has the case of Martha Moxley, a 15-year-old who was bludgeoned to death outside her family's mansion in the affluent Belle Haven section of town in 1975.

The Moxley case has maintained a high profile because two nephews of the late U.S. Sen. Robert Kennedy are among the murder suspects. The case has been the subject of two recently published books, the inspiration for a novel and subsequent television miniseries, as well as fodder for numerous talk shows and other television programs. A reinvestigation of the Moxley case was launched in 1991, and last month a grand jury was appointed to probe the matter.

Robbins was promoted captain and placed in charge of the Detective Division three months after Margolies was killed. For reasons he would not explain, Robbins said he had been unable to pursue the case as vigorously as he had wanted. But in a May interview, Robbins said that as a result of his appointment as chief eight months earlier, he found himself in a position to do things with the investigation he previously could not.

On Thursday, the police chief said he remained optimistic the case would be solved.

I just think that it's a solvable case, but I don't want to go into why I believe that at this time," Robbins said.

The victim's mother, Maryann Margolies, who still lives in Glenville, has declined comment on the reopening of her son's case.

According to Walters, there have been no new developments that warranted the renewed investigation, but he said it was hoped that advances in forensic science since the 1984 slaying would play a pivotal role in identifying the youth's killer.

"We're going to re-evaluate all the evidence to see if they should be submitted for further forensic analysis," he said. "There is a substantial body of evidence in this case."

In addition to a knife found near Margolies' body, believed to be the murder weapon, Walters said the initial investigation recovered trace evidence. Although he would not disclose what was recovered, trace evidence can include hair, clothing fibers, semen, or any other physical evidence a killer leaves at the crime scene.

No fingerprints were found on the alleged murder weapon, as the knife was exposed to rain during the five days Margolies' body went undiscovered.

According to police, Margolies set out the afternoon of August 31, 1984 from his Pilgrim Drive home to go fishing in the Byram River. Police said they believed the boy was killed the same afternoon by someone who repeatedly stabbed and strangled him. The boy's partially nude body was discovered five days later in a wooded area near the river. The boning knife believed to be the murder weapon was found a short distance. from the body.

Shortly after the murder, the FBIis Behavioral Science unit profiled Margolies' killer as a white male familiar with Glenville, who knew Margolies as well as the victim's passion for fishing. In a town funded 1986 paid consultant's critique of the Police Department's investigation, the murderer was further characterized as a sadist who lured his victim to a secluded area where he would be able to act out his gory fantasies.

Walters said no time limit has been set on the renewed investigation, "The investigation isn't going to be limited by time constraints," he said. "We will spend whatever time is necessary to follow all leads and review all the evidence to further the investigation as far as we can."