Missing-child investigation detailed at Leniart trial

Judge Barbara Bailey Jongbloed this afternoon told the jury not to report to the courthouse on Wednesday, since a "significant weather event" is expected.

If the trial resumes on Thursday, as planned, Patrick "PJ" Allain is expected to testify that he and Leniart were with teenager April Dawn Pennington on the night she disappeared from her family’s home at 43 Orchard Drive in Montville. Allain, who is incarcerated on sexual assault charges, was scheduled to testify Tuesday, but time ran out, and he was brought back to prison without taking the witness stand.

Earlier, former Montville Corporal Scott Davis, the first police officer to investigate a report that 15-year-old April had gone missing, described the steps he took to find the missing child.

Davis, who left police work and now works as a comptroller for an electrical contractor, told the jury the girl’s parents were extremely distraught when he went to their house on the morning of May 30, 1996. He said he checked April’s basement bedroom, where there was a stuffed animal under the covers on her bed and saw that a nearby window was ajar. He contacted Montville High School and sent out a teletype about the missing girl. At that point, he said, it appeared to be a "routine" call and he had no reason to suspect foul play.

Davis said that in the days to come, he re-interviewed the Penningtons, seized notes and poems from April’s bedroom and examined the family’s caller ID system. He spoke to the friends identified by April’s mother, but could not contact Patrick "PJ" Allain, the teenager who would later tell police that he and Leniart were with April that night. Allain said he and Leniart picked up April in Leniart’s pickup and both had sex with her that night. He said April was still in the truck with Leniart when Leniart dropped him off. He also said Leniart told him the next day that April would not be seen again.

The police also searched the nearby waterways and woods for April with canines and a boat, and in the following days and months Davis continued to follow leads while conducting his other police duties. In September 1996, with April still missing, detectives with the state police Major Crime Squad took over the investigation.

Defense attorney Norman A. Pattis has been implying during cross-examinations that April may have been suicidal as the result of a breakup with a boyfriend. He asked Davis what he thought when he read the letters and poems he seized from April’s bedroom.

"I questioned whether or not she might be suicidal," Davis said.

April’s body has not been recovered, but the state is trying to convict Leniart, a repeat sex offender, based on the testimony of Allain and others to whom Leniart allegedly confessed.