Cold case: Couple gunned down at cemetery; no answers 30 years later
Gladys Punch was visiting her late husband’s grave with her brother. It was Labor Day 1994, and the two had just placed a bouquet of flowers on the grave at St. Lawrence Cemetery in West Haven.
Soon after, a passerby found their two bodies among the headstones near Forest Road and called 911. They had been gunned down, in the middle of the afternoon, and left to die.
But despite witnesses describing two or three men fleeing the area, three bullet casings found at the scene, hundreds of tips being called in and the state putting up a $20,000 reward, the perpetrators were never identified or charged.
Punch, 72, was a retired nurse. She had spent years taking care of her husband, Eugene, at home before he died of Alzheimer’s disease in 1992.
The two met and fell in love during World War II, when they were both in the Navy, according to the New Haven Register.
Punch, who lived in West Haven, would visit her late husband’s grave several times a week, family said.
That Labor Day weekend, her brother George Tarkington, 75, was visiting from Queens, N.Y., to celebrate Punch’s birthday, and they had parked her blue Pontiac near the grave they were visiting. Punch, who walked with a cane due to her poor hips, was unable to walk long distances, news clippings detail.
Tarkington, known as “Bud” to his friends, was a retired oil tanker worker and “tough-talking New Yorker” who lived a quiet, simple life in the city but often came to Connecticut to visit his sister, according to news clippings.
That Monday afternoon – Sept. 5, 1994 – at the cemetery, police say someone tried to rob the couple, and believe Tarkington may have tried to put up a fight. He was shot twice in the face at close range with a 9mm handgun, and Punch was shot once in the neck. Police speculated she may have been trying to run away, despite her limited mobility.
Tarkington died at the scene while Punch was pronounced dead at Yale New Haven Hospital.
Tarkington’s wallet with several hundred dollars still intact was found on his body, but police could not find a purse or wallet for Punch, speculating the robbers had taken it with them when they fled the scene. The car keys were at the scene, and the Pontiac was still there.
Police quickly ruled out a murder-suicide because of the distance between the bodies and the fact that no weapon was found at the scene.
The cemetery, which borders New Haven, is sandwiched between Yale athletic fields, the busy Route 34 and residential neighborhoods.
Dozens of witnesses were questioned. Since it was a warm holiday weekend with people grilling and spending time outdoors, police figured someone nearby must have heard or seen something useful.
The state’s attorney’s office put up a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killer or killers. Hundreds of tips came in to police, and they said they tracked down every lead, questioned every contact and revisited the scene to gather more evidence.
A local teen charged in another cemetery robbery was initially believed to have been involved in the West Haven case, but police could not find evidence to connect him to the Labor Day double murder.
About 13 years later, police reached out to the Henry C. Lee Institute of Forensic Science at the University of New Haven for assistance in reviewing the case. Details were scarce on this collaboration, but it appears no further suspects were identified or charged.
The family of the victims sued the Catholic Cemeteries Association, accusing it of negligence, failing to provide proper security at the cemetery and ignoring a pattern of crime in the area. That lawsuit was settled in 2000 for an undisclosed amount, news clippings show. The cemetery association did – at least for a time – beef up security in the area.
Punch and Tarkington are now buried there in St. Lawrence Cemetery, just feet from where they died. But still, more than 30 years later, it’s unclear who killed them.
Anyone with information related to this case can contact the Cold Case Unit at 1-866-623-8058 or cold.case@ct.gov. Written correspondence can be sent to the Cold Case Unit at P.O. Box 962, Rocky Hill, CT, 06067.