Benjamin Rosario (Wild Card, Connecticut)

On a hot afternoon in August 1994, a Bridgeport police officer named Ernie Nandori responded to a call about a suspicious bag in the middle of Sea View Avenue. He expected to find a discarded Halloween toy. Instead, he found a human leg, still fully intact. The discovery launched one of the most disturbing homicide cases in Connecticut history—the murder and dismemberment of Benjamin Rosario, a 55-year-old man who neighbors knew as the guy who sat on his porch singing Spanish love songs.

The discovery and the missing person connection

The first person to arrive at the scene after police was Dan Tepfer, a reporter for the Connecticut Post who had been monitoring his police scanner. Tepfer watched from ten feet away as officers examined the limb, snapped photos, and then worked the growing crowd for information. Back at the station, Officer Nandori was writing up his report when a detail caught his attention: inside the trash bag, alongside the leg, was a pair of dark jeans with an airbrushed star and the letters "SD" on them. Nandori recognized those jeans. Just the day before, he had taken a missing person report from a woman named Nelly Rosario and her stepson, Rodrigue. Her husband, Benjamin, had left their apartment around 10 p.m. on Monday, August 1, heading to a local bar called Side Effects. Nelly told Nandori that Benjamin had been wearing a long-sleeve blue plai