SPRINGFIELD — In the weeks before she was found stabbed to death in a pool of blood in her kitchen on Aug. 26, 2011, 20-year-old Amanda Plasse had been the victim of a break-in at her Chicopee apartment.
Plasse thought she knew who had burgled her apartment and believed it was a Hispanic man who lived in her neighborhood, according to documents filed in District Court.
A boyfriend of Plasse’s told police she had obtained the suspected thief’s telephone number and asked the man for a meeting to discuss the break-in during the month leading up to her death, an investigator’s report says. The boyfriend told investigators the man “lived within a short walk” of Plasse’s apartment and his name began with a “D,” according to the affidavit.
The state police investigator’s report was made public on Tuesday in District Court as the result of a request by The Republican, which argued the documents filed in the case are public records.
The report also states it was DNA evidence which led police to the November 2013 arrest of Dennis Rosa-Roman, then 22, of Springfield, on a charge of murder.
The Republican challenged a move made at Rosa-Roman's arraignment by the office of Hampden district attorney Mark G. Mastroianni to impound the investigator's report.
“These documents, which were acquired after considerable time and expense devoted to their release by The Republican newspaper, finally provide the public with information about this murder case which it was entitled to have months ago,” said attorney Joseph P. Pessolano, who represented The Republican.
“The Republican will continue to fight for the public’s right to know, especially in politically-charged cases in which information is impounded,” said executive editor Wayne E. Phaneuf.
The documents shed no light, however, on why it took investigators more than two years to make an arrest in the case which became a lightning rod for a review of the Chicopee Police Department's operations. The Plasse investigation evolved into a major controversy in Chicopee over the past two years, including some fallout in the mayoral election which saw Mayor Michael Bissonnette lose his re-election bid on the same day Rosa-Roman was arraigned.
State police, in the affidavit made public this week, said they obtained scrapings from the woman’s fingernails after her death, and that evidence was compared with a DNA sample provided by Rosa-Roman when he was arrested in Westfield.
An investigator’s report also states that investigators determined Rosa-Roman had lived about four blocks from Plasse at the time of the killing.
“Based on the DNA testing and contrary to his denials, Dennis Rosa-Roman did touch Amanda Plasse on the day she died. And, based on all of the evidence, there is probable cause to believe that Dennis Rosa-Roman, armed with a knife, assaulted and murdered Amanda Plasse in her Chicopee home on Aug. 26, 2011,” states the affidavit filed by State Police Lt. Richard C. Rollins as the basis for arresting Rosa-Roman.
Rosa-Roman has denied all charges against him, during both District and Superior court arraignments; he is being held without right to bail pending his prosecution on a charge of first-degree murder.
Rollins filed the affidavit in Chicopee District Court on Nov. 5, 2013, as a basis for the warrant to arrest Rosa-Roman. Rosa-Roman was arrested that day in Westfield and then arraigned in the Chicopee court.
Mastroianni had the investigator’s affidavit immediately impounded and opposed efforts by The Republican which sought its release on the basis it is a public record.
Pessolano, representing the newspaper, argued the public’s right to know outweighed claims by the prosecution that the documents should remain sealed as part of a continuing investigation and to protect Plasse’s privacy and the rights of Rosa-Roman to a fair trial.
The affidavit, with portions of it withheld (or redacted) at the request of the prosecution and the defense, was made public by order of Judge Philip Beattie. Beattie originally ordered the documents made public in November, but Mastroianni’s office appealed the ruling to the state Appeals Court.
The public records case was returned to the District Court last month in the wake of Rosa-Roman’s indictment in Hampden Superior Court. With the indictment, a claim that the investigation was continuing appeared to be a moot point, and Mastroianni’s office said it would agree to release a redacted version of the officer’s statement.
The redacted portions of the affidavit appear to contain the bulk of a recounting of Rosa-Roman’s statement to police. Also blacked out are the identities of several witnesses in the case, including a boyfriend of Plasse’s who appears to have provided investigators details which linked Rosa-Roman as a suspect in the case.
At the time of Rosa-Roman’s arraignment, the district attorney had refused to provide any information about the case, a possible motive or whether Rosa Roman and Plasse had been acquainted.
The investigator’s affidavit states that Plasse called the man who she thought had broken into her apartment, arranged a meeting and asked him to return a bowl which had been taken, according to the document. “He was upset that she had called him out without even asking. .¤.¤. She just told him if he had the bowl then she wanted it back,” the boyfriend related to police, the statement says.
Investigators went on to establish that Rosa-Roman lived in an apartment on Cabot Street in August 2011. Records from Plasse’s cell phone showed both outgoing and incoming calls on July 28, 2011, to and from Rosa-Roman’s cell phone, according to Rollins’ affidavit.
State police first approached Rosa-Roman on Oct. 29, 2013, to discuss the case, according to the detective’s statement. As they attempted to convince him to sit down for an interview, Rosa-Roman “admitted he knew (Plasse)” but told officers he hadn’t been in Chicopee for “maybe a couple of years.”
Rosa-Roman sat down for an interview with detectives on Nov. 1 at the Westfield police station. “Dennis Rosa-Roman gave officers a written statement after being advised of his rights, and he provided a DNA sample,” Rollins wrote.
The officers noted Rosa-Roman was wearing Nike Air Max shoes, the same type, but with a different tread pattern, than the footwear documented in bloody tracks at the crime scene.
As described by police, Plasse had been found dead in the kitchen of her apartment at 73 School St., Chicopee. “Blood stains throughout the kitchen revealed that Plasse had been stabbed multiple times in the course of a violent struggle,” according to the officer’s statement.
“Bloody footware impressions” were found near Plasse’s body, and they were found to be “consistent with a women’s Nike Air Max shoe with a non-marking sole, U.S. size 9.5.” The statement adds, “On information and believe, as a general rule, one can convert a men’s shoe size to a woman’s size by adding 2. For example, a man who wears a men’s U.S. 7.5 would likely take a woman’s 9.5.”
In the wake of Plasse’s death, police officials learned a patrolman and a police sergeant took photographs of the bloody crime scene on their cell phones and then shared them with other officers. One of the officers then showed the photographs to members of the public.
The incident, including the disciplinary action taken by former Police Chief John R. Ferraro Jr. against the officers involved with the photographs, became a central issue in the election race between Bissonnette and his opponent, former Mayor Richard Kos. The election occurred on the same day Rosa Roman was arrested, and Kos emerged the victor.
Bissonnette made the picture-taking incident public when he announced he had hired Charette as police chief to replace Ferraro, who retired abruptly in June. Ferraro’s exit came shortly after Bissonnette learned about the photographs and questioned the punishments meted out by Ferraro. Bissonnette hired a former state police internal affairs investigator to review the actions of the Police Department.
Police report: Arrest of Dennis Rosa-Roman for murder of Amanda Plasse by masslive
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