from Fellowship Of The Minds:

Nearly five years have passed since the murder of Attorney Abe Dabela. But some previously unpublished information may remove some of the moss growing over the story of his tragic death.

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Leafy, prosperous Redding, Connecticut, which sits near the middle of Fairfield County, was originally named “Reading,” not because of an especially literate population but because of one lawyer named John Read.

Read would help define the town’s boundaries in 1767, but soon after the town was named after him, a decision was made to change the spelling to plain, easy-to-pronounce Redding, obscuring reference to John Read – and literacy. Citizens were left with a name that strongly suggests the color red.

It hardly seems fair to Mr. Read. But there are far worse examples of injustice in Redding involving the color of blood.

A recent one concerns the death of a lawyer named Gugsa Abraham (Abe) Dabela, found dead in his crashed Mercedes SUV near his home in Redding at 2:11 a.m. on April 5, 2014.

Dabela had moved from New York City to Redding in 2011, renting a garage apartment owned by Peter Swan at 8 Indian Hill Road.

In the website named for him (justice4abe.com), Dabela is described as “gregarious” and “outspoken.” He was also witty and diligent. With a master’s degree in public health and a law degree under his belt by 2012, Dabela passed bar exams in New York and Connecticut. He was preparing applications for admission to the Maryland and D.C. bars, and had every reason to be gregarious and outspoken and witty and confident. But he would practice law for only a year before falling victim to a killer.

Three stops and a text message. Shortly before his death, 35-year-old Dabela visited two local restaurants within minutes of his home: the Little Pub in Ridgefield and the Black Cat Grille in Redding, both solid establishments with loyal clientele. It was later revealed (by friends of Dabela) that he also visited another pub, The Lumberyard Pub and Sports Bar at 2 Main Street in Redding (now permanently closed), although the police mysteriously omitted this information.

Map showing the restaurants Dabela visited the night of his death, Courtesy of Google Maps ©2019

At about 12:03 a.m., Dabela received a text message, which read: “turn he just didn’t.” The Yoda-like syntax was mysterious enough. Adding to the mystery, according to the case file and a report based on it by Crime Watch, the sender’s cell phone information was deleted after Dabela’s death, while the phone was in police custody.

The crash at Umpawaug and Mallory. While driving back to his home, Dabela swerved for unknown reasons, turning his SUV on its roof. He was pronounced dead less than a mile away from his home, not as the direct result of the crash, but from a gunshot wound to the back of his head.¹ Whether the bullet was fired before or after the crash has never been determined, but the driver’s side window was completely shattered, and at the time he was shot, Dabela’s head was positioned near that window.

The crash site itself – on the corner of Umpawaug Road and Mallory Lane – merits close attention. Dabela was traveling north on Umpawaug toward his home on Indian Hill Road. (See map below.)

As speculated by researcher Anne Berg, the site would provide a perfect location for a staged accident, with the perpetrator blocking off Umpawaug and secreting his vehicle on Mallory, then just lying in wait to shoot through Dabela’s car window either before or after the crash.

Perhaps Dabela just didn’t turn in time to avoid the blockade, as presaged by the text message.

A case of police negligence. According to official sources :

• Dabela’s blood alcohol level was 2.5 times the legal limit for driving.


• Dabela was in possession of a firearm at the time of his death.


• The gunshot wound was to the back of Dabela’s head.


• Dabela committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot: this was the official conclusion before an autopsy was ever performed.


• There was no suicide note.

It was also revealed by police that an anonymous 911 caller reported a rollover crash at about 1:36 a.m. without stopping to help Dabela.

But police negligence at the crime scene was the real shocker. It was so blatant, in fact, that Dabela’s family filed a lawsuit in April 2016, suing the town of Redding and various members of the Redding police department on 10 counts of civil rights violations. You can find the PDF of the case filing here.

Among the defendants were Douglas Fuchs, Redding’s chief of police; and seven of Redding’s police officers (Ryan Alcott, Mark DeLuca, Peter Quinn, Timothy Succi, Brandon Kaufman, Brittany Salafia and Michael Livingston).

The suit hinged on the family’s belief that Dabela’s case was mishandled and the murder covered up because of racism (Dabela was African-American), an opinion shared by the Connecticut NAACP, which assisted in the family’s investigation.

Other possible motives, while touched on, have not (in this writer’s opinion) been sufficiently explored, such as the fact that Dabela made no secret of his political views, which favored the second amendment and private property rights; and other opinions, which we shall explore later.

The case file includes a full account of what happened according to the plaintiffs. Here are some of the most glaring anomalies it reveals:

• Dabela had no physical or mental health issues and no history of erratic or self-destructive behavior. Reports from those who observed him at the pubs the night of his death reflect a man in good spirits. And he had made plans with his landlord for a motorcycle ride the following day. Why, then, would he have committed suicide?


• Dabela’s hands were never photographed and tested for residual gunpowder, as would be expected after such a death. Why? (His hands were originally bagged for this purpose, but later washed without residue testing. His jacket sleeves tested negative.)


• A gunshot wound to the back of the head is normally attributed to homicide, not suicide. Why did the investigators rule out homicide even before the autopsy? Other facts contradict the suicide theory: The bullet entered the left side of Dabela’s head, yet Dabela was known to be right-handed.


• A muddy footprint was found on the back of Dabela’s jacket. It’s hard to imagine how it could have been Dabela’s. Whose was it?


• Dabela’s DNA wasn’t found on the trigger he allegedly pulled. The tests were performed twice with the same negative results.


• Using a metal detector, the police found a bullet near the crime scene four days after the crash, but it wasn’t the bullet that killed Dabela. The bullet that entered his head was never found. A firearm was found in the SUV along with the spent shell casing of a .40 caliber bullet and a bullet hole in the back of the driver’s seat.


• Hair evidence was found on the inside of the passenger window in Dabela’s vehicle, but was never tested for DNA or compared with other DNA evidence.


• The police who discovered Dabela’s body in the vehicle neglected to secure the vehicle or establish a perimeter around the site to protect against evidence contamination. They did, however, place police tape around the entrance to Dabela’s apartment.


• Whether Dabela was murdered prior to or after the crash is still unknown.

More injustice. In June 2017, Danbury state’s attorney Stephen J. Sedensky, III ruled unequivocally that no homicide had occurred. Sedensky had already achieved notoriety as the overseer of the official report on the Sandy Hook incident, a document loaded with inconsistencies.

Sedensky’s ruling on Dabela’s death did not silence Dabela’s family who, in late 2018, were still seeking DNA samples from three firefighters who were later determined to have been at the crime scene.

According the Dabelas’ attorneys, “[Abe] Dabela had been intimidated by Redding firefighters at a local bar a few weeks before his death.” Note that. It will become important below and in Part 2 of this series.

Rights infringed. Dabela had been the owner of two firearms that he was licensed to carry, but that distinction was not easily won. In Connecticut, obtaining a gun permit means taking an NRA-approved course, obtaining references, visiting a local police department to be fingerprinted, submitting to an FBI check, visiting the state police to obtain the permit, and paying generously at each stop.

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