Emanuel Lovell Webb

For years, these cases sat open. Then, in 2006, a cold‑case DNA review put a name to three of those murders: Emanuel Lovell Webb. ^[2][3]

A Cluster of Murders in Bridgeport’s East End

Between 1990 and 1994, Bridgeport recorded 287 homicides. Only seven involved strangulation. ^[2]

Former FBI behavioral specialist Gregg McCrary later testified that among those strangulation deaths, four victims were women. Police made an arrest in just one of those cases. The other three—Sharon C., Minnie S., and Elizabeth G.—remained unsolved through the 1990s. ^[2]

Minnie, Sharon, Elizabeth, and Sheila

On March 28, 1992, the body of twenty‑nine‑year‑old Minnie S. was found at 16 Webster Avenue. ^[2] Detectives recovered two partially smoked cigarette butts near her body. Later DNA testing showed that one of them contained Webb’s DNA, according to the state’s proffer. ^[2]

Sometime after Minnie’s killing, but still in the early 1990s, another East End woman, Sharon C., was found dead. Sharon was thirty‑nine. ^[2] She was nude from the waist down, with a ligature around her neck and extensive burns, especially to her face. ^[2] Vaginal smears taken during her autopsy revealed multiple intact spermatozoa that contained Webb’s DNA, according to the state. ^[2]

The cause of Sharon’s death was determined to be asphyxia due to strangulation. ^[2] Contemporary reporting likewise described a death by strangulation, noting that the medical examiner’s office identified strangulation as the cause and that a burnt piece of cloth had been tightly wrapped around her neck. ^[4]

On April 19, 1993, thirty‑three‑year‑old Elizabeth G.—known in some reports as Elizabeth “Maxine” Gandy—was discovered in an abandoned building at the corner of Stratford and Fifth Streets, described in the press as an abandoned pool hall. ^[1][2] The state’s proffer listed her as thirty‑three, while news reports gave her age as thirty‑four. ^[2][3]

The scene suggested a brutal attack. Elizabeth’s pants were partially unfastened and her bra was pulled up to expose her breasts. Blood spatter reached about six feet up a wall. ^[2] An autopsy concluded that she had been killed by blunt force trauma to the head and strangulation. ^[2]

Forensic testing became central. Blood collected at the scene and scrapings taken from beneath Elizabeth’s fingernails both contained Webb’s DNA, according to the proffer, a point senior assistant state’s attorney Joseph Corradino would later highlight publicly. ^[2][3]

Just over two months later, on June 28, 1993, another woman—Sheila E., age twenty‑nine—was found dead at 695 Bishop Avenue. ^[2] An autopsy could not definitively fix how she died. Decomposition limited the findings, but there was an anatomic suggestion of asphyxia or strangulation, and the scene and circumstances were deemed suspicious. ^[2] Investigators recovered a beer can from the area that contained Webb’s DNA, according to the state. ^[2]

By that summer, three women—Minnie, Elizabeth, and probably Sharon—had been strangled; a fourth, Sheila, had died under suspicious conditions hinting at the same mechanism; and all were tied to Bridgeport’s East End. ^[1][2]

Then Webb left the state.

A Move to Georgia and Another Dead Woman

In August 1993, Webb relocated from Bridgeport to Georgia. ^[2] Less than a year later, another woman connected to him turned up dead.

The DNA Breakthrough

By the mid‑2000s, Webb was back in custody in Georgia, serving time after a parole violation related to Evelyn’s 1994 death. ^[3] While he sat in a Georgia jail, Bridgeport’s cold case unit reopened four dormant files: the deaths of Sharon C., Minnie S., Elizabeth G., and Sheila E. ^[2][3]

In 2006, detectives submitted evidence from those four Bridgeport cases for modern DNA analysis. According to the state’s proffer and later reporting, the items tested contained DNA that matched Webb’s profile in CODIS, the national law enforcement DNA database. ^[1][2][3]

Bridgeport police and prosecutors obtained an arrest warrant charging Emanuel L. Webb, then forty years old, with homicide in the April 1993 death of Elizabeth “Maxine” Gandy. ^[1][3] They requested that Georgia transfer him to Connecticut to face the charge, and publicly stated that they hoped to bring additional counts in the three other cases where a DNA match had been found. ^[1]

As the investigation gathered momentum, police also told reporters they were examining whether Webb might be linked to as many as six more murders that bore similarities to the DNA‑linked killings. ^[1] In a neighborhood where at least fifteen women had been murdered over roughly a decade, the notion of a serial predator stalking the East End took on new urgency. ^[1]

Turning Separate Files Into One Case

The Georgia Case Enters the Connecticut Courtroom

Prosecutors wanted the jury to hear about Evelyn C.’s death in Georgia as well. In May 2008, they filed a motion in limine asking the Connecticut court to admit evidence of Webb’s Georgia involuntary‑manslaughter conviction as uncharged‑misconduct evidence on the issue of identity. ^[2]

The trial court agreed. It found that Evelyn’s death shared what it called the same “criminal logo” as the Bridgeport homicides: strangulation, additional unnecessary injuries, a sex‑related incident, and Webb’s presence when the victim was killed. ^[2] On that basis, the judge ruled that evidence concerning Evelyn’s killing could be introduced to help show that the same person committed the Bridgeport murders. ^[2]

McCrary, the former FBI agent, reinforced that narrative from the stand. He testified there had been 287 homicides in Bridgeport between 1990 and 1994, only seven by strangulation, and offered the opinion that the four Bridgeport cases under review and the Georgia case were forensically linked. ^[2]

Senior assistant state’s attorney Joseph Corradino went further in public statements, pointing out that blood at one of the crime scenes and fingernail scrapings from a victim matched Webb’s DNA, that the crimes occurred near Webb’s home, and that they bore strong similarities to each other. ^[3]

The Defense Pushback on DNA and Pattern

Webb’s defense did not concede that the DNA matches proved he was the killer. His attorney, Miles Gerety, called the consolidation order “well‑reasoned” but wrong, and argued that the DNA evidence did not establish that Webb committed the crimes. ^[3] Gerety noted that another unidentified person’s DNA was found on one of the cigarette butts from a crime scene. ^[3]

In appellate filings, Webb disputed the state’s assertion that his DNA was found at the relevant crime scenes in the way prosecutors claimed and argued that DNA testing alone cannot yield identifying results without certain inferential steps. ^[2] At the same time, he did not contest that, if accepted, the DNA matches in this case would allow a jury to conclude that the tested DNA belonged to him. ^[2]

The defense also attacked the state’s pattern theory. Dr. McDonough’s testimony underscored medical differences among the victims, particularly in Sheila Etheridge’s case. ^[2] And on appeal, Webb argued that the trial court had been wrong to find the evidence in the three Bridgeport murder cases cross‑admissible to prove the perpetrator’s identity, and wrong to admit the Georgia evidence regarding Evelyn. ^[2]

The Decision to Plead

Faced with a consolidated trial that would include three Bridgeport murder cases and the Georgia manslaughter as identity evidence, Webb faced serious exposure. By one contemporary account, he was looking at up to sixty years in prison if convicted. ^[3]

On May 6, 2008, after the court issued its rulings on consolidation and admissibility—including the admission of Evelyn C.’s case—Webb and the state reached a plea agreement. ^[2]

Under the deal, Webb entered written pleas of nolo contendere—no contest—to the murder charges related to Sharon C., Minnie S., and Elizabeth G. ^[2] He specifically conditioned those pleas on his right to appeal the court’s May 6 rulings under a Connecticut procedural rule, preserving his legal challenges to consolidation and to the Georgia evidence. ^[2]

In exchange, the state agreed that at sentencing it would enter a nolle prosequi—a formal decision not to prosecute further—on the murder charge connected to the death of Sheila E. ^[2] News reports later summarized this as the Sheila Etheridge charge having been “dropped,” a description that tracked with the practical effect but not the precise legal terminology. ^[2][3]

Family members of the victims were present in court. Tequea Gandy, whose mother Elizabeth had been strangled in 1993, attended a hearing and said she wanted to see Webb spend the rest of his life in prison. ^[3]

The Challenge on Appeal

What Remains Unanswered

Even with the court cases closed, some aspects of the story remain unsettled.

The precise number of murders to which Webb may be connected has never been fully resolved. During the 2006–2007 investigation, Bridgeport police said they were examining whether he might be involved in as many as six additional killings that shared similarities with the DNA‑linked cases, against a backdrop of at least fifteen women murdered in the East End over roughly a decade. ^[1] The available record, however, reflects charges and courtroom findings only in three Bridgeport murders and in Evelyn C.’s death in Georgia. ^[2]

Sheila Etheridge’s case also lingers in a gray zone. Her body was found in 1993 in a suspicious scene with anatomic signs suggesting asphyxia or strangulation, and a beer can at the scene carried Webb’s DNA. ^[2] Yet decomposition prevented medical examiners from declaring a definitive cause and manner of death, and a defense expert emphasized that her injuries differed from those of the other victims. ^[2] The murder charge tied to her death was ultimately nolled as part of the plea deal, leaving open the question of exactly what happened to her that June day. ^[2]

The role of DNA evidence in the case continues to embody a broader debate in criminal justice. Prosecutors framed the DNA matches—on vaginal smears, a cigarette butt, blood, fingernail scrapings, and a beer can—as anchors in a web of circumstantial and behavioral evidence pointing to Webb. ^[2][3] Webb’s defense pushed back, arguing that DNA alone does not equal guilt and challenging how the state drew inferences from those profiles. ^[2][3]

What is clear is that, for three Bridgeport families, the cold cases that had sat unsolved since the early 1990s now have legal resolutions, even if they came not by jury verdict but by no‑contest pleas. ^[2] Sharon C., Minnie S., and Elizabeth G.—women whose deaths once blended into grim crime statistics in the East End—are now formally named in the record as victims of murder at the hands of Emanuel Lovell Webb. ^[2]