In the early morning hours of December 7, 2019, the life of Denise Rogers-Rollins, a 58-year-old Black/African American woman, was tragically cut short in her Waterbury, Connecticut, apartment. Police were dispatched to her Wall Street residence around 12:20 a.m. following a report of a gunshot. Upon arrival, they discovered Rogers-Rollins on the floor with a gunshot wound to her torso. She was rushed to a local hospital, but her injuries proved fatal, and she was pronounced dead.
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner would later confirm that her death was a homicide caused by the gunshot wound.
The investigation into the violent death of Denise Rogers-Rollins quickly gained momentum as detectives from the Waterbury Police Department, with assistance from their forensic division, began to piece together the events of that fatal morning. Their efforts soon led them to identify individuals believed to be involved in the homicide. Less than a week after the incident, on December 13, the first arrest was made. Shavonnah Draper, a 26-year-old woman from Bridgeport, was taken into custody and charged with felony murder and conspiracy to commit felony murder. She was held on a substantial $1 million bond. At the time of Draper's arrest, law enforcement officials indicated that they anticipated further arrests in the case, suggesting a belief that more than one person was responsible for the crime that had shaken the community.
Continuing their determined pursuit of justice, investigators identified two additional suspects. On December 19, 2019, a joint task force of U.S. Marshals and Waterbury detectives located and arrested 48-year-old Howard Jefferson in Bridgeport. He faced charges of felony murder and conspiracy to commit felony murder, and like Draper, was held on a $1 million bond. The final suspect, 44-year-old Gonzalo Diaz, also a resident of Bridgeport, was apprehended by Waterbury and Bridgeport detectives on January 7, 2020. Diaz faced a host of serious charges, including felony murder, conspiracy to commit felony murder, criminal attempt at first-degree robbery, and criminal possession of a firearm. His bond was set at $1.5 million. With the arrest of Diaz, the police announced that they had taken all suspects in the murder of Denise Rogers-Rollins into custody, bringing a measure of closure to a community saddened by the violent loss of one of its members.
