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Suspects in death of scientist cleared
By Amy Augustine
Concord Monitor

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Cold-fusion advocate was killed at home

More than four years after local scientist Eugene Mallove was brutally murdered outside his childhood home in Connecticut, the hunt for his killer is back where it started after charges against two suspects in the case were dropped this week.

A Connecticut judge ruled Thursday that there was not sufficient physical evidence tying Gary McAvoy, 46, and Joseph Reilly, 42, to the 2004 killing. The men, both charged for the murder in 2005, are serving sentences on unrelated theft convictions and are now eligible for parole.

Mallove, then 56, was discovered beaten to death on the lawn of his Norwich, Conn., home in May 2004. Mallove, a Pulitzer Prize-nominated author, moved to Bow in 1987 and then to Pembroke about two years before the murder. He'd returned to clean the house, which was being used as a rental property.

His wife, Joanne Mallove, said yesterday that her family is "heartsick" over the news. For three years, the police told the family they were certain of Reilly and McAvoy's guilt, she said, and being forced to relive the details of the murder is devastating.

"We're basically going back to the original crime, and if it wasn't these two, who could it have been?" said Joanne Mallove, who now lives with family in Bow. "I just really hope that, at some point, they will find the person who did it."

Though Reilly and McAvoy were questioned days after Mallove's death, more than a year went by before they were charged.

On the night of the murder, the police said Reilly was seen driving Mallove's stolen van, which turned up in the parking lot of Foxwoods Resort Casino the following day.

Reilly and McAvoy were arrested two days later in New Britain, Conn., for driving a stolen car. The men allegedly told the police they had gone on a "crack binge" and confessed to several burglaries, but denied any role in the murder.

Defense attorneys said the state's case lacked concrete evidence connecting the men to the murder and, in their appeal, cited a recent mix-up of DNA evidence at the state's crime lab. Attorneys on both sides did not respond to calls yesterday.

Lt. Steve Bakoulis of the Norwich Police Department said the investigation is ongoing, but he declined to comment on specifics.

The police believe Mallove was killed during a robbery in progress, and they have suggested he may have interrupted or challenged the thief or thieves. He had been badly beaten around the head and neck, and his clothing was bloodied and torn, indicating there had been a struggle.

His wedding band, wallet, cell phone and digital camera were also stolen.

Mallove, an MIT- and Harvard-educated scientist, founded the Concord-based New Energy Institute and was editor in chief of its magazine, Infinite Energy.

Speculation that Mallove had been murdered over his theories about alternative energy has been unfounded.

His Pulitzer-nominated writings about cold fusion, a controversial theory about the nuclear process, advocated that research and development of the technology could yield inexpensive and abundant source of energy. Some believe research about cold fusion technology has been rejected and suppressed to benefit other types of nuclear technologies.

Months before his death, Mallove published an open letter appealing for the support of "radical" new forms of energy. "These are energy sources that have the potential to turn the present world order upside down and bring about a bright new day for civilization," he wrote.

Joanne Mallove said the family does not believe the research played any part in his murder.

"I think it was unfortunately an interaction that really went wrong," she said, noting that her husband was "a very generous and kind man" and may have tried to help the wrong people.

Neighbors told the police they had seen someone who wasn't Eugene Mallove mowing the lawn on the day of his murder. Joanne Mallove said she thinks her husband may have hired someone to work for the day.

"We believe, and the police believe, he went out and bought some food for the people who were working with him," Joanne Mallove said. "Just the thought that there might have been somebody there working with him who turned on him, even after he brought them lunch, it goes to show that they're just heartless."

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