Bill Aims To Prevent Killers Acquitted By Insanity From Cashing In

Feb. 28--The legislature is considering a bill that would prohibit an individual acquitted of killing someone by reason of insanity from receiving money through the victim's estate or life insurance policy.

The proposal is aimed at preventing situations similar to the David Messenger case. Messenger killed his wife Heather in 1998, was acquitted by reason of mental defect and subsequently received more than $400,000 from her estate.

The legislature's judiciary committee will hold a public hearing on the bill on Monday.

State Victim's Advocate Garvin Ambrose said the bill is a direct response to the Messenger case. Messenger beat his wife to death in their Chaplin home as their then-5-year-old son watched.

Messenger was sentenced to 20 years under the care of the state Psychiatric Security Review Board. Because he was acquitted of his wife's murder, Messenger, 60, was allowed to remain as the beneficiary of her estate. She had specified him as beneficiary in the will she signed five years before her death, probate records show.

After the murder, Heather Messenger's family filed a wrongful death lawsuit which Travelers Property and Casualty, which held the homeowner's insurance on the couple's Chaplin home, and agreed to settle for $600,000. The money became part of Heather Messenger's estate. After legal fees, $424,627 remained, with David Messenger as the beneficiary, according to probate records.

And because Messenger voluntarily gave up his parental rights to his son, the boy wasn't eligible to challenge Messenger's standing as the beneficiary of the estate.

The estate is part of the nearly $2 million in assets that Messenger has including properties in Maine and the $345,000 he got when the couple's Chaplin home was sold in 2004. Heather Messenger was never listed as an owner, so her estate was not entitled to any of the proceeds.

When The Courant wrote about Messenger's assets, probate officials said there was nothing in the law that prohibited him from getting the money from his wife's estate. Attorney John Klar, ,who represents the Messenger family, said Friday that Heather's family is grateful that the state is addressing the loophole.

"It becomes a renewed trauma where such a legal conclusion results in the killer inheriting all that was owned by the victim. That is what happened to this wonderful family, when David Messenger inherited all that Heather owned, including hundreds of thousands of dollars from insurance proceeds arising from Heather's death," Klar said in a statement. "This was an additional crime against this family, enabled by Connecticut law. This must never be allowed to happen to another family -- ever."

The psychiatric review board last year, over objections from Heather Messenger's family, approved a treatment plan that allows David Messenger to live in the community for the last few years of his sentence. He had been living at Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown.

If the bill becomes law, it will be the second passed because of the Messenger case.

In 1998, legislators passed a law requiring the state police to have a minimum staffing level of 1,248 troopers. The law was in reaction to the lengthy response time to the emergency call from Chaplin. It took state police 18 minutes to respond to Heather Messenger's 911 call.

The bill also adds the crimes of manslaughter in the second degree and manslaughter in the second degree with a firearm to those for which a conviction prohibits the convicted from benefiting from the estate of the deceased or from the deceased's life insurance policy or annuity.

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