On the run UConn shooter Peter Manfredonia grew up a couple of houses away from Sandy Hook killer Adam Lanza
The University of Connecticut student who is on the run after a killing spree reportedly grew up on the same street as notorious Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza, with some claiming that he "snapped" in a similar manner. According to the South Passaic Daily Voice, Peter Manfredonia, 23, left the bone-chilling message amid a series of crawls in his dorm walls before allegedly killing two men and injuring another. “We saw what happened when Adam snapped,” one message read, according to student reporters at YourContent.com. “Now they see what happens when I snap.”
Manfredonia grew up in Newtown, just a couple of houses away from Lanza - the mentally disturbed 20-year-old who massacred 20 children and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. Records show that Manfredonia's family moved to 16 Yogananda Street in 1997 - the same year he was born and just one year after Lanza's family moved in the neighborhood at #36 on the same street. When Lanza began his killing spree in 2012 -- starting by shooting dead his mother in their house -- Manfredonia's family appeared to still be at the house.
This means Lanza and Manfredonia grew up as children on the same street, with the former just five years older. The Connecticut Post noted how the street was named after a Hindu spiritual leader who introduced yoga to Westerners and wrote a number of essays on inner peace. In a 2018 social media post, Manfredonia had written about school shootings, describing them as “an epidemic plaguing this great country we live in."
Last September, he announced in another post how he had raised funds for Sandy Hook Promise by completing a triathlon. The advocacy group was founded by a number of parents whose children had died in the shooting. But Manfredonia was still being hunted by authorities on Wednesday, after killing 62-year-old Ted DeMers and his former classmate Nicholas Eisele, 23, who was found dead inside his Derby residence on Sunday morning.
Meanwhile, his family has urged him to surrender through their attorney Michael Dolan. Speaking to the Connecticut Post, Dolan revealed the 23-year-old had "mental health issues" but “no history of violence.” “This really came out of nowhere,” he insisted.
UConn also did not disclose if Manfredonia had a disciplinary record at the school. “The horrific and incomprehensible loss of life is reminiscent of so many other tragedies at so many other places around the country and the world,” UConn President Tom Katsouleas said in a statement. “Though rare, we have been sadly reminded that none are immune from such random acts, and that they don’t always happen somewhere else.”
“No matter where they occur, such tragedy leaves us with overwhelming sadness for the victims and their families and struggling to make sense of how someone — in this case, someone from our own community — could be capable of such carnage," he added.
During a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, Lt. John Aiello, commanding officer of the Connecticut state police Eastern District Major Crimes Squad, spoke on Manfredonia at the agency's Middletown headquarters. “Peter, we’ve talked to your family. We’ve talked to your friends and your roommates. All of them have said the same thing that this behavior is out of the ordinary for you,” Aiello said. “We know this is not who you are.”