WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — Police are trying to determine whether a perpetrator who hijacked a car at knifepoint in the parking lot of the Co-op Food Store in White River Junction on Saturday afternoon is tied to the homicide of a man who was found shot to death and stabbed at his home in Canaan on Sunday.
A Subaru Outback that an unidentified man stole while the driver had stepped out and left with the motor running at around 1 p.m. was later that evening located on a back road in Canaan, according to Lt. Randy St. Peter with the Hartford Police Department.
Then on Sunday evening, police discovered the body of 67-year-old William Colao at his home in Canaan on Sawyer Hill Road.
St. Peter said that Hartford police are investigating whether the two incidents are connected, but as of Wednesday afternoon were still unable to positively identity the man who hijacked the woman’s vehicle.
“We can’t accurately say at this point in time that the suspect in the carjacking is the suspect that they think did the homicide in Canaan,” St. Peter told the Valley News, adding that the investigation is ongoing and involved multiple police agencies in two states.
The stolen vehicle from White River Junction was located abandoned on a rural road in Canaan about 20 hours before Colao’s body was found by police at his home on rural Sawyer Hill Road on Sunday evening.
On Wednesday, two law enforcement officials who did not want to be identified because they are not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation said investigators in both states are pursuing leads that the incidents may involve the same perpetrator.
Both the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office and Canaan police declined to comment on Wednesday, saying Colao’s homicide remains under investigation.
Hartford police received a call shortly after 1 p.m. on Saturday that a woman reported her car was stolen when she stepped out of her vehicle while the motor was running to look at books at the free library near the Co-op Food Store, St. Peter said.
The woman said she had gotten of her vehicle and walked out to look at the books when a man “jumped” into the passenger-side seat. She approached the driver-side door and the man brandished a knife and told her to get in the car. When she refused, he slid over to the driver’s seat and drove off, St. Peter said.
The woman’s phone and purse had been left in the car. She was not injured in the incident.
The stolen vehicle was located by police later that evening at 9:43 p.m. on a Class 4 road in Canaan, according to St. Peter. One of the woman’s cards that had been in her wallet was recorded making a $2.96 purchase at 8:40 a.m. the following morning in West Rutland.
St. Peter said the surveillance camera video footage of the Co-op parking lot “didn’t offer any identifying information of the male” who stole the vehicle.
After the stolen Subaru was recovered it was returned to its owners, St. Peter said.
On Monday, the state medical examiner’s office determined that Colao had died from a gunshot wound to the head and had also suffered multiple stab wounds. Colao had lived by himself at the property that previously had belonged to his parents and was known to sometimes have disturbing interactions with neighbors and passersby.
Colao’s violent death followed a little more than two weeks after Canaan police sought the public’s help via its Facebook page in identifying a man who was captured on video surveillance cameras breaking into homes along Goose Pond Road. Goose Pond Road is close to Sawyer Hill Road, both on the east side of Goose Pond.
On Wednesday, Canaan Police Chief Ryan Porter told the Valley News via email that “the burglaries that took place in Canaan are still under investigation, and we are currently gathering evidence related to those cases. To maintain the integrity of the investigations, I am unable to provide any comments or further details at this time.”