Episode 127: Geoffrey Kent Ferguson
44-year-old Geoffrey Ferguson was the property owner and landlord for 166 Portland Avenue in the Georgetown section of Redding, Connecticut. This was a single family home that Geoffrey had converted into three separate apartments. The first floor had two units, one of which was occupied by a woman named Laureen Spear and her 5-year-old son, and the other was occupied by a Costa Rican immigrant named Freddi Altamirano and three other friends. The second floor had the third unit that was occupied by three friends: Scott Auerbach, David Froehlich and Jason Trusewicz.
In March of 1995, the three men that lived in the upstairs unit were late paying their rent. As Geoffrey lived in North Carolina, he asked his friend Christopher Given to go to the property and collect the rent that the three men owed. The tenants told Christopher that they would pay the rent to Geoffrey soon, but this angered Geoffrey and he showed up at the apartment to evict the men. He removed all of their furniture, belongings, and even the toilet and thermostat and left them outside the property and strewn all over the driveway. The men came home to the scene and found that the door to enter the apartment had also been boarded shut with plywood.
After calling police, who determined that the men were evicted unlawfully, they reentered the apartment and began cleaning up their belongings. Shortly after this incident the men filed a claim in small claim’s court, as over $3,000 of their belongings had been stolen from them by Geoffrey. Officials also determined that the apartment had multiple building and fire code violations and that the men were living in unsafe conditions with a leaking roof and nonfunctional toilet, causing them to have to use an outhouse. Geoffrey was ordered to appear before the Redding conservation commission on April 18th, 1995. The day before the court date, police applied for a warrant for Geoffrey’s arrest so they could charge him with criminal lockout. This same day, Geoffrey rented a champagne-colored Ford Tempo from U-Save Auto Rental in Harbinger, North Carolina. He removed the front license plate and headed back to Connecticut.
At around 4:00pm on April 18th, 1995, Freddi Altamirano was in his apartment on the first floor in the back of the building watching TV when the screen suddenly went black. After adjusting the cable box and still not getting a signal, Freddi looked out the window and saw Geoffrey walking around outside. He had cut the cable and phone lines. Geoffrey then leaned a ladder against the side of the building and climbed to the second floor before entering the upstairs apartment. Inside of the apartment at the time were one of the tenants, 22-year-old David Froehlich, and one of his friends, 26-year-old David Gartrell. Geoffrey shot David Froehlich twice in the head before shooting David Gartrell three times in the head. He then placed both of the men’s bodies in the bathrooom and waited for the other men to come home.
The other two tenants, 21-year-old Scott Auerbach and 22-year-old Jason Trusewicz, came home from work at about 5:45pm and had brought with them their friend, 21-year-old Sean Hiltunen. As they entered, Geoffrey shot them all. Sean was fatally shot twice, once in his head and once in his neck. Jason was shot a single time in the head and Scott was shot twice in the head. Geoffrey then poured an accelerant on four of the five bodies before setting them on fire. Scott had managed to escape the flames and told first responders, “Ferguson did it.”
As the building was burning, Geoffrey hopped in his rental car and drove south, back to North Carolina. He stopped in Elizabeth City, North Carolina to call his father-in-law before making his way to his father-in-law’s home the day after the murders. After visiting with him briefly he spent the night at a motel before putting the front license plate back on the rental car and returning it the next morning. He was arrested later that same day, April 20th, on a fugitive warrant for charges of larceny and criminal lockout.
Although the four remaining bodies inside of the apartment had severe burns, police determined that all died from gunshot wounds to the head from a .22 caliber semiautomatic pistol that Geoffrey owned. The gun has never been found. Forensic testing of a piece of one of the victim’s charred clothing as well as a floor mat from the rental car determined that both of these had come into contact with the same petroleum-based accelerant, pinning Geoffrey to the scene of the crime.
On June 11th, 1998, Geoffrey Ferguson was sentenced to life in prison for killing the three tenants and two of their friends.
On May 7th, 2003, 52-year-old Geoffrey hung himself in his prison cell. He was found by guards unresponsive at just before 3:00am and was pronounced dead at Danbury Hospital an hour later.
Image sources:
murderpedia.com - “Geoffrey Kent Ferguson”
nytimes.com - “5 Are Found Dead in an Arson-Homicide Case”