Lawyer says client is innocent; not connected to other cases

John Regan, 49, appears in court one day after being arrested for allegedly trying to abduct a Saratoga Springs teen. (Photo: File / WNYT)

SARATOGA SPRINGS, Nov. 14
By MARK MULHOLLAND Saratoga North Country News Chief

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Police say they're confident in their case against 49-year-old John Regan, the Waterbury, Conn. accused of trying to abduct a 17-year-old Saratoga Springs High School cross-country star as she left practice.

But Regan's attorney calls it all a big misunderstanding and says he has absolutely no connection to other unsolved cases.

It's been two weeks since police arrested Regan. In that time, police in Saratoga Springs have received calls from police agencies all over the northeast wanting to know more about the man accused of attempted kidnapping. Specifically, they want to know if this is the same man who kidnapped and killed 16-year-old Molly Bish of Warren, Mass., if he played a role in the disappearance of Suzanne Lyall in Albany and other unsolved cases in New York, Massachusetts and his home state of Connecticut where he has an alleged violent history

Regan's attorney, E. Stewart Jones, says the short answer is no. Jones says his client is innocent of the charges in Saratoga Springs and has no connection to other unsolved crimes.

“He tells me there's an explanation for everything that occurred including the evidence that was found in the vehicle. He had stopped there to make some telephone calls on his cell phone. He thinks there was a misunderstanding and an overreaction, which he handled very poorly, quite frankly,” Jones said.

The attorney says Regan has already lost his case in the court of public opinion.

“Right now he's been effectively convicted in the press of a variety of crimes of which he's not yet been charged and which he absolutely no connection,” Jones added.

Prosecutors in Massachusetts say they're asking police to see if there's evidence linking Regan to Bish.

New York State Police say their primary focus right now is assisting the Saratoga Springs Police Department. When that's wrapped up in the coming days they'll take a look at unsolved cases.

Last Updated: November 14, 2005 22:45:00

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By Staff and wire reports
Monday, November 14, 2005 - Updated: 03:15 AM EST
News that an itinerant roofer is in jail in New York for trying to kidnap a blond teen on Halloween has the family of murdered lifeguard Molly Bish heartsick and eager to hear more about the case.

“We are a desperate family, and this strikes close to home,” said John Bish of Warren, whose 16-year-old daughter was abducted in June 2000. “We’ve had close calls and near misses before, but the parallels here are frightening.”

Waterbury, Conn., roofing salesman John Regan, 49, was arrested in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., accused of trying to kidnap a New York teen from her school parking lot Oct. 31. Police say his work van held a blue tarp and a noose, and he is being probed in three states for unsolved rape and murder cases.

Massachusetts state police went to New York on Thursday to examine Regan’s past, Bish said. Regan is known to have visited Sturbridge, and investigators want to know whether his work records include trips there in mid-2000. Warren is about 11 miles from Sturbridge.

“This sounds like a very bad scene,” Bish said. “This man’s behavior is so disturbing. Molly was blonde and athletic. So was this New York girl. It has definitely put our family on a roller-coaster.” He said he hopes to meet with state police tomorrow to learn more.

Investigators are looking at Regan in connection with crimes dating to 1988. He is a married father of three. “We’ll know a lot more about John Regan in the months to come, but he led a very interesting double life,” Waterbury police Superintendent Neil O’Leary said. “Obviously there was a dark side.”

Defense attorney Stewart Jones said the sweeping investigations only encourage false accusations.

“Obviously, he’s an easy target for the police,” Jones said. “I don’t think they’re going to turn up anything.”

O’Leary also wants to revisit the unsolved murders of Mildred Alvarado and Karen Everett, two prostitutes found strangled in Harwinton, Conn., in 1988 and 1989. Both worked the streets less than a mile from Regan’s home, O’Leary said.

Police charged Regan last year in connection with a 1993 attack in which a Waterbury woman awoke to find a masked man in her bedroom. Court documents say the man gagged her, put a pillowcase over her head and raped her.

In 2004, police received a complaint from an employee of Regan who accused him of pulling her onto his lap, forcing her onto her back and trying to have sex with her. That investigation revealed that Regan knew the 1993 victim. He provided a DNA sample that, police say, matched the old case.

Because the statute on rape had expired, Regan was charged with kidnapping. He pleaded not guilty in both cases and posted bail. Regan was also found to possess pictures showing blondes he did not know, in their teens and early 20s, attending a high school soccer game.

“When you hear about this, about the things he had in the van, it stops your heart,” Bish said. “It’s haunting. I want them to get to the bottom of it. This may be a significant thing.”

http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=112061
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I'm thinking along those lines also, Don.

JS

Arrest Draws Bishes' Interest

Wonder If Man Held In N.Y. Killed Molly

November 20, 2005

By DANIELA ALTIMARI, Courant Staff Writer

It's been a busy week for Magdalen Bish. The first-grade teacher from Massachusetts has been preparing for the school's pilgrim pageant, holding parent conferences and getting ready for her family's Thanksgiving gathering.

In between it all, she's had to confront fresh questions about her 16-year-old daughter's abduction and killing. "It's been tough for us," said Bish, who came to Connecticut Saturday with her husband, John, to deliver a talk on child safety at the University of New Haven.

Molly Bish vanished from her lifeguard post at a pond near her home in the tiny town of Warren, Mass., on June 27, 2000. Police recovered her remains nearly three years later.

"She came home bone by bone," Magi Bish recalled. "First her shin bone, then her skull. ... In the end, 26 of Molly's bones came home to us."

The recent arrest of a 49-year-old father of three from Waterbury in connection with an attempted abduction in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., has the Bishes wondering if he may be linked to their daughter's unsolved case.

"His arrest was a heart-stopping thing for us," John Bish said.

Investigators plan to review the work records of John Regan to see whether the roofing and siding salesman was in western Massachusetts the day Bish disappeared. He traveled annually to conferences in Sturbridge, Mass., not far from the pond where Bish was last seen, investigators said.

Regan attracted attention in the Bish case and other unsolved crimes after he was arrested Halloween night in Saratoga Springs. Police said he tried to force a teenage girl into his work van.

The Saratoga Springs teen - like Molly Bish - is blond and athletic, John Bish said. "There are many facts of the abduction attempt that are very frightening to us," he said.

Investigators in Massachusetts have long suspected that Bish was kidnapped by someone familiar with the area, but John Bish has a different hunch. "I've always feared it was someone from outside the area," he said.

Regan, who remains in a psychiatric facility in upstate New York, has not been charged in the Bish case. His lawyer, E. Stewart Jones, said investigators are overreacting and will turn up nothing.

"From what I understand, from what I've been assured, there is no connection here," Jones told the Associated Press Friday.

Since their daughter was killed, the Bishes have created a foundation to promote safety and raise awareness of missing children. Their visit to the University of New Haven was organized by a student group dedicated to helping crime victims. The audience left the talk with child safety identification kits provided by the foundation.

The couple began their presentation with a slide show of their daughter. It charted her transformation from a chubby baby in pink to a radiant young woman in a long white gown, beaming as she prepared to leave for the junior prom.

They ended with another slide show, this one displaying photographs of abducted children from throughout New England.

As painful as it will be, the Bishes said, they want to find out what happened to the girl who loved snowboarding and soccer and did a perfect impression of Forrest Gump.

"We need to know what happened to Molly and who hurt her," John Bish said. "It would give us some peace."

An Associated Press report is included in this story.

http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-bish1120.artnov20,0,1149756.story?coll=hc-headlines-home

© 2005 by The Hartford Courant

By John Murray

For the past year friends and family of John Regan stood by his side after he was arrested for allegedly raping the wife of one of his best friends. The charge was so outrageously off the wall, and despicable, that many people in the community refused to believe he had committed the crime.

His DNA was found on the victim, but maybe, some justified, they had consensual sex together. There was no way John Regan could have slithered so low as to sexually assault his buddy's wife, the reasoning went, that was too far off the charts.

That the arrest came 11 years after the attack made the charge even more surreal to Regan's family and friends. The statue of limitations for sexual assault ran out after five years, but Regan was still charged with kidnapping. His loyal supporters believed an upcoming trial would vindicate him.

Denial is a powerful force, but the farce is over. John Regan not only attacked and raped the wife of one of his best friends, police now believe he may have been a serial rapist, and police have even darker suspicions that he may have murdered some of his victims.

A terrifying incident on Halloween night destroyed John Regan's mask of innocence, and revealed the monster that lurked beneath.

As darkness descended upon Halloween, a month before his kidnapping trial in Waterbury was to begin, Regan was arrested in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. and charged with trying to abduct a 17 year old high school girl from the school parking lot.

Waterbury Police Chief, Neil O'Leary, who broke the case last year by connecting dots separated by an 11 year span, talked to the Observer the day after the latest arrest. He said Regan had removed the back seat of his van in Saratoga Springs, laid down a blue tarp, and had pre-knotted ropes waiting to secure his victim.

In addition, sources have confirmed that the ropes were tied in a noose and Regan had a shovel in the van with him. It is not unreasonable to conclude that John Regan was intent on raping, killing and burying his young 17 year old victim

O'Leary, who immediately dispatched three Waterbury detectives to Saratoga Springs, said Regan had been in New York for two weeks working at a relative's construction project. O'Leary said Regan had probably stalked the girl because of the way he had positioned his van for the attack. The sliding door was positioned right next to the driver's door. When the student, a cross country star on one of the premiere teams in the country, went to open her door after practice, Regan is accused of opening the sliding door of his van, grabbing her by the waist, covering her mouth, and attempting to drag her into the van.

"She bit, screamed, yelled and kicked him," O'Leary said. "He yelled at her to stop. Thank God she got away."

Regan was confronted by two teachers and is accused of jumping back in his van and fleeing the scene. A coach and parent pursued the van in their cars. They called the police on cell phones and the van was stopped minutes later and Regan was arrested.

"It is horrific what happened to that child," O'Leary said. "Thankfully she was not physically hurt. But the fact that this happened strengthens the case back here in Waterbury."

O'Leary said that the Waterbury police had received a tip about Regan several weeks ago which sparked a new police investigation. A photo technician at a local lab was processing film and he noticed all the images were of women who were unaware that they were being photographed. He saw that the film was sent in by John Regan and recognized that the customer had been charged with kidnapping and assaulting women in greater Waterbury. Security personnel for the store contacted the Waterbury police department.

The women had been photographed as they jogged and worked out along a sev eral mile stretch of a bicycle path through the woods in Cheshire. In most of the images of the women, sources confirmed, they were wearing shorts and tight fitting athletic attire.

Other images on the rolls of film were of a former co-worker that Regan was accused of assaulting last summer. Police have said that the woman was unaware that Regan had been stalking her.

After Regan was arrested in New York, the Waterbury Police Department got a warrant to search his house on Euclid Avenue and removed additional photographic images. Waterbury police have charged Regan with stalking, and in the near future he will be arraigned back in Connecticut.

But two days after Regan was captured in Saratoga Springs, he attempted to hang himself with a bed sheet. He was cut down within minutes, surviving an attempt to avoid the consequences of his actions, such as coming face to face with his wife, children, and the friends and family who had supported him this past year.

Regan has been denied bail and is being held in a psychiatric hospital in New York state.

"This guy is a dangerous man. Period." O'Leary said. "He was stalking school kids. I hope the New York courts continue to hold him on no bail. It is a detriment to society to let him out. He is sick and dangerous."

On another note, O'Leary said this latest incident should bury any doubt anyone was harboring about Regan's innocence in the sexual assault case 12 years ago. "I always believed the woman was sexually assaulted," O'Leary said. "We have a perfect DNA match that says it was John Regan who did it. This should end the rumors forever."

This latest twist in the most bizarre and complicated case of Neil O'Leary's career needs a recap. The Observer has written two major stories on the case and COLD CASE was originally published last November.

http://www.waterburyobserver.com/worxcms_published/news_54.shtml

Here is the link to the story, Cold Case. It goes into comprehensive detail about the 1993 attack, the lawsuit, and the woman's final vindication:

http://www.waterburyobserver.com/worxcms_published/news_54.shtml

I was thinking of that and I also thought how much of what happened in the JBR case had that intent: the fake kidnapping, the duct-tape, etc. In the Molly Bish case, I'm sure the perpetrator just wanted his victim and had no concern whatsoever for the subsequent ordeals of the parents in either the short or the long term.