Police and prosecutors tapped a deep well of investigative resources to bring two men to trial earlier this month for the Dec. 23, 2006, shooting death of Todd “T-Rek” Thomas in New London.

A cold case unit made up of area law enforcement agencies got involved in the case in 2011. Investigators traveled to several states and the island of Trinidad to speak to witnesses. They used a grand jury, a legal tool rarely used in the region, to compel witnesses to provide information after all other investigative avenues were exhausted. They charged two men with the murder in 2012 and continued working with forensic experts as they prepared for trial.

Their efforts paid off on Nov. 19, when a 12-member jury found Gerjuan “Cali” Tyus and Darius “P-Nut” Armadore guilty of murder after just a few hours of deliberation.

“We were all relieved and very thrilled with the verdict,” said John T. “Jack” Edwards, a chief inspector with the Chief State’s Attorney’s Office who worked on the case as the head of the Southeastern Connecticut/New London County Cold Case Unit.

Edwards and others involved with the case said they are unable to quantify how much time and money it took over the last nine years to resolve the case, but said it was worth every hour and every dollar spent. Tyus and Armadore, characterized during the trial as drug dealers with violent pasts, will be sentenced in January to up to 60 years in prison. The victim’s wife and parents said the guilty verdict provided them with a sense of closure.

The case was not a classic “whodunit,” since New London Police had identified suspects almost immediately after Thomas was shot in the head as he stood outside Ernie’s Cafe on Bank Street smoking a cigarette. The victim was a 30-year-old city native who still dabbled in the streets while serving as a suburban stay-at-home dad at his home in Mashantucket. The suspects were known drug dealers with ties to Dorchester, Mass., who had a history with Thomas’ brother, John “John John” Thomas.

The investigative journey began on Dec. 3, 2006, when New London police were called to a drive-by shooting on Willetts Avenue. The patrol officers and detectives who worked the scene had no way of knowing that evidence obtained during the drive-by investigation would one day help them solve a murder.

Tyus was the victim and he was not cooperative. The police still conducted a thorough investigation, documenting and collecting the two types of shell casing that littered the street, talking to witnesses at the scene and at Lawrence + Memorial Hospital, where Tyus was treated for bullet wounds to the back and leg that were not life-threatening.

“Society itself becomes the overlying interest,” New London Police Detective Richard Curcuro, lead investigator in the case, said in an interview last week. “You’ve got bullets flying around the neighborhood. Gerjuan Tyus is not cooperating, but we care. We do. This is people’s neighborhood.”

While speaking to Tyus’ friends at the hospital, Curcuro said he patted down Rashard “Flex” Johnson due to the violent nature of the crime. What Curcuro found, a heavy gold chain with a diamond-studded Jesus medallion, would become a centerpiece of the homicide investigation.

“I go to pat this kid down and he’s got this necklace,” Curcuro said. “That’s interesting. I don’t know what it’s about, but I put it in a report.”

His thoroughness would pay off after Thomas was killed. Investigators learned that Thomas and Tyus had been feuding over two heavy gold necklaces that Thomas’ brother, “John John,” had given to Tyus while under the influence of PCP. They learned that “T-Rek” Thomas had driven by Tyus’ Willetts Avenue home in a white Lexus and exchanged gunfire with Tyus. Tyus had given Johnson the necklace to hold while he was treated in the hospital.

Forensic testing revealed that five 9 mm shell casings collected from the drive-by shooting were fired from the same gun as a shell casing recovered at the homicide scene.

After the homicide, witnesses in downtown New London reported seeing a man run to a gray car. Retired police Lt. George Potts, then a member of the Vice and Intelligence Squad, remembered seeing Tyus in a gray rental car several days before the shooting. The police seized the car and asked the state police Eastern District Major Crime Squad to process it for evidence.

Forensic examiners determined that Armadore and Thomas could not be eliminated as contributors to DNA recovered from blood stains on the car’s passenger door. That fit the police theory that Armadore, an “enforcer” for Tyus, had shot Thomas at Tyus’ request.

Witnesses were reluctant to talk, though, and there was not enough evidence to make an arrest.

Curcuro never gave up, according to his colleagues and the family of the victim. He developed a rapport with the victim’s wife, Keri Carter-Thomas, who did some of her own investigating and shared the results with Curcuro. In October 2011, with authorization from Chief Margaret Ackley, he began working with the cold case unit, which is overseen by the Office of the Chief State’s Attorney and made up of officers from area police agencies, local prosecutors, the Department of Correction and the FBI.

Every member of the team studied the case and brainstormed ideas at weekly meetings.

“That group was so sharp and so smart and so motivated,” Curcuro said. “Without Cold Case, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Chief State’s Attorney Kevin T. Kane, who prosecuted crimes in New London County for 20 years, said the area law enforcement agencies have always worked well together. He said all of the local police departments assign investigators to the cold case task force except for New London, a cash-strapped and short-staffed department that helps when it can.

“It helps everybody, and the investigators learn from each other by doing it, and that training and development then permeates back into the police departments,” Kane said.

Having hit an investigative wall with the Thomas case because key witnesses were unwilling or afraid to provide information, the investigators applied to present evidence to a grand jury. The application was approved, and Judge Brian Fischer was assigned to conduct a grand jury investigation.

Witnesses were subpoenaed — or compelled via court order — to testify at a secret proceeding, and the judge found there was enough evidence to prosecute the men.

In the meantime, Armadore’s girlfriend agreed to provide information after investigators talked to her about a witness protection program. She testified at the trial that the state paid $5,600 to help her relocate to another state. She said that Armadore broke down the day after the shooting and said he had shot someone. She said she had heard Tyus and Armadore talking about the feud with Thomas and that she had given Armadore a gun.

Once the two men were arrested, the New London State’s Attorney’s Office shepherded the case through the court system with the help of the investigators.

“It was a tremendous team effort in that everybody did what they were supposed to do,” said Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Paul J. Narducci, who tried the case with prosecutor David J. Smith and inspector Timothy Pitkin.

“An officer from Groton wasn’t saying, ‘No, I’m not going to do it because it’s a New London arrest,’” Narducci said. “There was no pride in ownership. The goal really was to make sure the perpetrators of this crime were convicted. It wasn’t, ‘Let’s get these two defendants.’ It was more of, ‘Let’s try to solve the crime.’”

The two defendants, represented by experienced attorneys appointed by the Office of the Chief Public Defender, wanted to take their chances in front of a jury.

The prosecutors started preparing for the trial in August. Narducci said he “sequestered” himself in his office on weekends to work on the file while Smith sequestered himself at home. Pitkin lined up witnesses and prepared evidence.

“He did a tremendous job coordinating the logistics,” Narducci said.

At the nine-day trial, the prosecution called 47 witnesses to testify and entered 157 exhibits into evidence. After the state rested, the defense attorneys called only one witness each — their clients. Tyus and Armadore both denied the crime from the witness stand, but their testimony contained inconsistencies that Smith exposed during cross-examination. Though the two men said they had picked up some women in Boston that night and driven them to a Norwich nightclub, phone records showed that they had been in New London when Thomas was killed.

The case took nine years to bring to trial, but the jury worked fast, listening to playback of testimony from three key witnesses and returning the guilty verdicts by 4 p.m. Though defendants convicted of such serious crimes usually appeal their cases, the prosecution team considers it a win.

“We think the jury did the right thing,” Curcuro said.

k.florin@theday.com

Twitter: @KFLORIN