A Connecticut man who killed his ex-girlfriend with an axe had a tantrum just before receiving a sentence of decades in jail.
Ewen Dewitt entered a guilty plea to murder and danger of harm to a child in connection with Julie Minogue’s death at her Milford residence in 2022. On Thursday, he went before a court to find out his fate. During the court appearance of prosecutor Margaret Kelly, Dewitt, 45, seemed to become angry.
Court deputies descend on Dewitt as he seems to stand in the video of the incident that New Haven NBC station WVIT broadcast.
The TV station bleeped out Dewitt’s tirade, which was filled with profanity.
WTNH, the ABC affiliate, reports that Dewitt was told to “watch your mouth” by the court after he interrupted Kelly’s description of the murder as “cold, calculated” and partially said, “rot in hell.”
But after the ax killer, surrounded by deputies, calmed down, the court resumed the hearing with Dewitt present. According to reports, Dewitt apologized in court for his behavior, claiming that he “snapped.”
In addition to the criminal charges, Minogue’s family sued the City of Milford and the police, as Law&Crime has reported.
On the evening of December 6, 2022, Minogue’s 17-year-old son contacted 911 to report that Ewen Dewitt had attacked and killed his mother with an ax, according to the Milford Police Department’s first statement on the gruesome murder. Michael Rosnick, the family’s lawyer in the civil case, told that the mother’s 3-year-old son was present in the house at the time and saw the attack.
Minogue was “granted a full no contact Restraining Order against the suspect following a complaint that the suspect sent her harassing text messages,” according to the Milford Police Department, and the murder happened five days later. Dewitt sent 200 SMS over two days in November 2022, according to later details provided by the department.
Hours after the murder, Dewitt, of Roxbury, was taken into custody in a trailer in West Haven, according to police. He was accused of committing the offenses of murder, home invasion, criminal violation of a restraining order, criminal violation of a standing protection order, and risk of harm to a child. According to Connecticut court documents, the defendant is also facing a felony assault and risk of injury to a child case from 2019, in which Dewitt is accused of being intoxicated when he allegedly threw a playpen at Minogue while she was holding their then-infant son, as well as a harassment case for his alleged actions in November 2022. According to News 12, Minogue required five staples to seal the wound that resulted on the back of her skull.
Officer Scott Knablin was placed on administrative leave pending the conclusion of an internal affairs investigation regarding his handling of a warrant application that was not finished until after Minogue’s death, Milford Police Chief Keith L. Mello revealed on December 15, 2022.
According to WTNH, Julie Minogue wrote before she passed away that she was “afraid [Dewitt’s] going to kill me.” According to reports, Dewitt “had a long history of violent behavior against Ms. Minogue and others, all of which was known or should have been known, to the proposed defendants,” according to the plaintiff’s relatives.
Chief Mello claims that when the investigation was turned over to another investigator on December 9, the “additional information” that the prosecutors had asked for was finally included in the warrant application.
The case is still pending.
