The Case of the Curious Spectator
Why Did Suspected Serial Killer Robert Lupinacci Attend and Take an Interest in the Martha Moxley Murder Trial
By Shawn R. Dagle
It is the second day of jury selection in the Martha Moxley murder trial and with the exception of a handful of newspaper reporters, court marshals and the family there were few in the courtroom audience to watch the proceedings from the public except for an older looking man in a green blazer and green shirt.
The man’s presence in the audience was so unusual the marshals and the reporters referred to him as the “lone spectator” believing he was the only member of the public in the courtroom that day. The Hartford Courant even interviewed the man when he returned from lunch.
According to Robert Lupinacci he had arrived at the courtroom before 8 a.m. that morning to watch the jury selection process. He was surprised no one else was there.
A retired electrician from Norwalk Lupinacci told Courant reporter Rinker Buck that he decided to attend the second day of jury selection because he felt “a strong connection the case.”
According to Lupinacci he had worked in Greenwich where Martha Moxley had been murdered and done electrical work at the Helmsley mansion and Pickwick Plaza.
What Buck didn’t know was that Lupinacci was no ordinary retired electrician – in fact he was a suspected serial killer who had been arrested in 1972 after a state trooper caught him in the act of strangling a naked woman near the Merritt Parkway in Stamford.
Beginning in the summer of 1967 a series of brutal murders had captured the public imagination in southeastern Connecticut.
In August of that year a young Black woman named Sissy Rush would be found strangled in a wooded area near the Merritt Parkway in Stamford.
By August of 1971 another four women would be found murdered near the same area along the parkway – many strangled with their own bras.
Stamford police were under intense pressure to solve the stranglings which had become known as the Merritt Parkway bra murders.
Investigators soon focused on a postal worker, with a history of mental illness, who claimed he was an ordained minister, who preached on the street corner to anyone who would listen named Benjamin Miller. Police interviewed Miller numerous times but he denied any involvement in the murders until he was later confined to a psychiatric hospital where he allegedly confessed.
In March of 1972 Miller was arrested for the murders. He was later found not guilty by reason of insanity and was committed to the Connecticut Department of Public Health.
There was only one problem with Miller’s confession. Not long after his arrest – in July of 1972 – another man was arrested for a crime eerily similar to the bra murders.That man – 39-year-old Stamford electrician Robert Lupinacci – was arrested after a state trooper caught him in a wooded area off the Merritt Parkway attempting to strangle a 17-year-old Black girl with a piece of wire.
The state trooper found the young woman lying semi-conscious and naked in the grass near Lupinacci’s vehicle as he stood over her. Lupinacci pled guilty to first degree assault and was sentenced to three to eight years in prison.
While Lupinacci was eventually released from prison Miller had to fight for decades to clear his name.
In addition to the striking similarities between Lupinacci’s crime and the bra murders there was also a voluminous amount of circumstantial evidence connecting the Stamford electrician to the crimes. Later court filings would refer to Lupinacci as a “sex nut” who was known to patronize Black prostitutes. The bodies of three of the bra murder victims were found within 100 feet of where Lupinacci was caught attempting to strangle his victim. He also had been seen by witnesses at a hotel where one of the victims lived and had worked at a motel where another of the victims had stayed. Lupinacci also sold pornographic playing cards. In the trunk of his car when he was arrested investigators found a pack with a missing queen of hearts. A similar card was found near the body of one of the bra murder victims according to court documents.
Nearly 30 years after Lupinacci was arrested near the Merritt Parkway attempting to strangle a woman near his vehicle he showed up in the courtroom to watch the second day of jury selection in the Martha Moxley murder trial.
On Halloween morning 1975 15-year-old Martha Moxley had been found murdered beneath a tree in the yard of her Greenwich home. She had been beaten and stabbed with a golf club.
Martha’s murder remained open for two decades until the late ‘90s when police arrested her former neighbor Michael Skakel who was 15-years-old at the time of her murder (Michael’s paternal aunt was Ethel Skakel the wife of Robert F. Kennedy).
Despite the fact that Michael Skakel had an alibi for the time of Martha’s murder and there was no physical evidence linking him to the crime Skakel was convicted and sentenced to 20 years to life in prison. His conviction however was later overturned.
While reporters took an interest in this “lone spectator” watching jury selection that day nobody seemed to have realized that the man they were speaking to was an attempted murderer and suspected serial killer.
Was Lupinacci – an obviously disturbed man – getting some type of sick pleasure from watching the proceedings of this famous murder trial or was there more to his unusual interest in the case?
Often times killers will revisit murder scenes or attempt to inject themselves into or follow investigations as a way to relive their crimes or feed their curiosity.
We do know in the case of Lupinacci he exhibited such behavior with the bra murders According to court documents a local police officer reported that during the investigation of two of the bra murders Lupinacci had “inquired about the location and duration of police stakeouts related to those investigations.”
Could Lupinacci have somehow been involved in Martha Moxley’s murder?
We do know by his own admission that Lupinacci did work in Greenwich, he did tell a newspaper reporter he had a “strong connection” to the case and he appears to have certainly been capable of murder.
There are of course some dissimilarities between the Moxley and bra murders. The victims in the latter were all African-American, had been strangled and driven to the area where they were murdered and at least some were known to be working as prostitutes. Yet there are some similarities as well. In the bra murders the killer used items on hand to commit the murders (using bras and other clothing to strangle his victims). Martha’s murderer used a golf club belonging to the Skakels that could have potentially been left in their yard. At least some of the bra murder victims were not sexually assaulted. Neither was Martha. Martha was found partially undressed. So was the victim Lupinacci was caught attempting to strangle.
Is it possible the Lupinacci had been working in the area as an electrician around the time Martha was murdered?
In July of 1973 Lupinacci was sentenced to three to eight years in prison for attempting to strangle the woman near the Merritt Parkway. It is unclear however how much of that sentence he served.
By his own admission Lupinacci did electrical work for Pickwick Plaza an office complex built in Greenwich. That work most likely would have been performed sometime between 1976 and 1977 so we know most likely he was out of prison by that time but it is still unclear whether he was in prison in October of 1975 when Martha was murdered.
If he was in prison at that time it would clearly eliminate Lupinacci as a suspect in Martha’s murder. If he wasn’t it raises serious questions regarding his interest in the trial.
Whatever answers Lupinacci may have had regarding his interest in the Moxley trial he has taken to his grave. Lupinacci died in 2013.
-November 7, 2022
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Sources
Benjamin F. MILLER, Jr., Petitioner-Appellant v. Colin C.J. ANGLIKER, M.D., Director, Whiting Forensic Institute, Respondent-Appellee United States Court of Appeals,
Second Circuit May 20, 1988.
The Hartford Courant “Lone Spectator Gives Trial a Historical Perspective” Rinker Buck April 4, 2002