Nearly five years after Anthony Hamlin's body was discovered in a Ledyard field, the state is offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of his killer or killers.

"We're just trying to generate some new information, which might help us out," said Sgt. John Turner of the State Police Major Crime Squad. "We have information here, but we're just trying to spark new interest. We know there are people with information, and we're just trying to get at that."

Though almost five years have passed without an arrest, Turner said the case remains classified as an open and active investigation.

"This definitely isn't a cold case," Turner said. "It's something we're always working on, we're just running out of information to follow up on."

On Jan. 28, 2006, Hamlin, a 40-year-old father of five from Groton, was found dead in a vacant field off Shewville Road. A state medical examiner ruled Hamlin's death a homicide and said he died from blunt trauma to the head. An Eastern Pequot upset by the reversal of his tribe's federal status, Hamlin had plans to move to

Virginia.

The day before he was found dead, Hamlin had been in Hampton, Va., where he interviewed with a land surveying company that had offered him a job. He had returned to the area to get some of his possessions, calling relatives from a Subway restaurant, where he was buying a sandwich for the train ride back to Virginia just 10 hours before his body was found.

Hamlin was active in the Eastern Pequot tribe, working with tribal officials as they prepared their petition for tribal recognition, volunteering at powwows and working to keep sacred fires burning on the reservation

during special times.

Speaking after his death, Hamlin's family said he tended to stay close to home and they could not understand how he wound up in Ledyard, where his killer or killers had left him lying naked and face down in a horse

pasture.

Anyone with information about Hamlin's death is asked to contact the Connecticut State Police Eastern District Major Crime Squad at (860) 886-6603 or the New London County State's Attorney at (860) 443-2835.