Contributed photograph/  U.S. Air Force Col. Francis J. McGouldrick Jr. grew up in New Haven. The U.S. government recently identified his remains from a crash site in Laos, 45 years after he went missing during the Vietnam War.        

By Jim Shelton
Register Staff
NEW HAVEN >> When U.S. Air Force Col. Francis J. McGouldrick Jr. is buried in Arlington National Cemetery Friday, 45 years to the day after his plane went down over Laos, family from Greater New Haven and around the country will be there to honor his memory.
“He was my Uncle Jay,” said Debbie Shanley of Milford, who will attend the burial with her husband and four children. “He was extremely outgoing and happy, always in command and great at sports. He was very dedicated to his country and to his family.”

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Colleen Sheehey’s son, Dustin Church, was killed by a drunk driver in 2004. A portrait of Dustin lays at the foot of the podium. Catherine Avalone - The Middletown Press

By Kaitlyn Schroyer
Middletown Press
MIDDLETOWN >> For Skip Church and Colleen Sheehey, the holiday season serves as a reminder of the hole in their hearts. Their son, Dustin Church, died in a drunken driving crash in 2004.
“I had no chance to say goodbye,” Sheehey said. “I couldn’t be there and hold his hand and that is something I’ll regret the rest of my life.”
When Dustin and his friends planned a night out that July evening, they didn’t designate a sober driver, the parents said. The group of friends ended up in a car with a drunk driver behind the wheel. They were going 75 miles per hour in a 35 mph zone when the driver lost control of the car, the vehicle flipped over, ricocheted off signs and trees, and plunged into the Housatonic River.

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By Randall Beach
Register Staff
New Haven >> Fifteen years after Suzanne Jovin was stabbed to death on East Rock Road, state cold case investigators still are trying to figure out how she got there, who killed her and the timetable of those events.
Jovin, a 21-year-old Yale University student, was found lying on the sidewalk, near the intersection of Edgehill Road, the night of Dec. 4, 1998. She had been stabbed 17 times.
“It’s a jigsaw puzzle in very small pieces,” said Chief State’s Attorney Kevin T. Kane as he sat in his Rocky Hill office last week.

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