They say the human brain doesn’t fully develop until the age of 25, but that’s no excuse for the married, middle-aged men caught misbehaving on video and in texts in the Stephen Nicholson case in East Lyme.
You might have read about it in the papers. A 35-year-old man is charged with 11 counts including felony kidnapping of a now 19-year-old woman in East Lyme.
They first met while working at a Dunkin’ in East Lyme.
To complicate matters, Nicholson has a limited intellect, and what co-workers describe as a childlike quality and preoccupation with Disney. The shift manager at Dunkin’ – the designated adult in the room where many of the alleged crimes had their root – is barely in her 20s.
And while Nicholson was allegedly stalking and threatening the teen over a number of months – detailed at length in the arrest warrant – his co-workers admit they were fleecing him of many thousands of dollars spent on gifts – clothing, food, a four-figure cat – to win their friendship.
Recall that Nicholson referred to the victim as his “best friend,” during an off-the-books traffic stop by an East Lyme Police Detective seemingly staged to frighten him from returning to East Lyme or seeing the victim.
None of this is flattering.
But the question I have is not whether Nicholson is guilty or innocent – that’s a matter for the courts – the question I have is, where were the adults?
Well, the parents of the teenaged victim were living in the UK.
The 60-year-old police detective, Mark Comeau, was a neighbor and had a close relationship with the victim. But rather than truly helping the victim by following police procedure and common sense and passing the case on to another detective, he instead bungled the investigation.
Bizarrely, no one even interviewed Nicholson, much less the co-workers named in the arrest affidavit.
And the adults on the Police Commission, the town’s mechanism for overseeing the East Lyme Police Department?
Not a word from them yet, but I don’t think it’s a secret (to the commission) that one of their members couldn’t help himself early last year and sexually propositioned the victim –- we have the texts.
That this taints the town’s ability to oversee the police department in this case is pretty obvious. The clear choice now is to expand the scope of Daigle Law Group’s already ongoing investigation of the department.
Frankly, this story is just getting started… so, where are the adults?