Kyle Navin and Jennifer Valiante charged over double murder of his parents

Kyle Navin, 27, and his girlfriend, 31-year-old Jennifer Valiante were arrested Friday night, state police said
Navin, who already was in federal custody on a weapon charge, was charged with two counts of murder and murder with special circumstances
Valiante was charged with conspiracy to commit murder and hindering prosecution
Navin’s parents Jeffrey, 56, and Jeanette, 55, have been missing since August from their Connecticut home
Police found two bags of remains at a vacant home in Weston Thursday
The owner, Thomas Kerrigan, is reportedly a friend of the Navins’ son, Kyle, who is a person of interest in the case
Medical examiner determined by Friday afternoon the remains were human
The Navins had financial troubles but neighbors say they were close and appeared loving

Snejana Farberov

and
Laura Collins In Easton, Connecticut, For Dailymail.com

Published:
15:51 GMT, 30 October 2015

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Updated:
06:39 GMT, 31 October 2015

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The 27-year-old son of a Connecticut couple whose remains were found in a yard months after they disappeared has been arrested in their killings, along with his girlfriend, state police said.

Kyle Navin and his girlfriend, 31-year-old Jennifer Valiante were arrested Friday night, state police said.

Navin, who already was in federal custody on a weapon charge, was charged with two counts of murder and murder with special circumstances. Valiante was charged with conspiracy to commit murder and hindering prosecution.

The bodies of Jeffrey and Jeanette Navin, of Easton, were found Thursday in the yard of a vacant home in Weston, the medical examiner’s office confirmed late Friday. Easton and Weston are wealthy, neighboring towns near Bridgeport.

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Kyle Navin (pictured in college photos) has been charged with two counts of murder and murder with special circumstances

Break in the case: Police searching for missing couple Jeffrey Navin, 56, and his wife Jeanette, 55, on Thursday discovered human remains at a vacant home in Weston, Connecticut

Dig: Police discovered the human remains at 89 Norfield Road in Weston, Connecticut, after getting a tip from the property’s owner

According to authorities, the discovery was made at a vacant home in Weston Thursday afternoon owned by a friend of the missing couple’s son. The remains were then taken to the medical examiner’s office, where experts later determined they were human.

The office is now in the process of identifying the remains and determining the cause and manner of death.

Earlier Friday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tracy Dayton said there was evidence, including the discovery of the remains, that ‘very strongly suggests’ that Kyle Navin killed his parents. Her comments came during a hearing in federal court in Bridgeport in the weapon case against Kyle Navin.

His lawyer, Eugene Riccio, declined to comment on Dayton’s statements, the discovery of the remains or the gun charge.

Businessman Jeffrey Navin, 56, and his wife, Jeanette, 55, have been missing since early August. Their son, 27-year-old Kyle Navin, was named a person of interest in the disappearance last month but was arrested on an unrelated gun possession charge.

State police released a statement Friday saying the search began at around 3pm Thursday at a house located at 89 Norfield Road in Weston – a town where the Navins lived for many years before moving in Easton.

Weston Police Chief John Troxell said officers turned their attention to the abandoned property after getting a call from the owner, local businessman Thomas Kerrigan.

A police office stands at a blocked road as State Police search the area around a home in Weston reportedly belonging to a friend of Kyle Navin

Sources said two bags of human remains were removed from the vacant property owned by Thomas Kerrigan

Police turned their attention to the abandoned house after Kerrigan called them saying he found ‘something’ he thought might be human remains during a clean-up

‘Kerrigan told police he was doing a clean up on the grounds that afternoon when he found ‘something’ he thought might be human remains,’ the Weston Forum reported. ‘He asked police to investigate.’

The Hour reported Friday, citing unnamed sources, that the suspected human remains were found inside two bags.

The news website described Kerrigan as a friend of Kyle Navin’s. Police said the property owner is not considered a suspect at this time.

Last month, Daily Mail Online revealed that the couple’s son, Kyle, told a friend about their disappearance the day before they were allegedly discovered to be missing.

In legal documents seen by Daily Mail Online, FBI Special Agent Mike Zuk has testified that, according to one long term acquaintance he interviewed, Navin said, ‘he was dealing with a lot of family issues and that it looked like his parents were missing,’ on August 5.

That was the day before his uncle William called to inform him that his father had failed to turn up for work on August 6.

The couple was officially reported missing the following day, on August 7, after failing to turn up to work at the waste disposal company Jeffrey and his brother William ran together and with relatives unable to contact them on their cell phones.

On September 10, Kyle Navin, of Bridgeport, was arrested and charged with possession of a firearm by a drug user – a crime that can carry a sentence of 10 years.

The detailed affidavit for that, seen by Daily Mail Online painted a troubling picture.

Connection: The Navins lived in Weston for many years before moving to Easton

In it Navin was shown to have changed his account of his own and his parents’ last known movements four times; his girlfriend lied about her whereabouts on the last day the Navins were seen alive; and chilling text messages reveal the bizarre last known communication between father and son in which Jeffrey Navin accuses his eldest son of trying to ‘set him up’ and ‘frame him’ for the murder of Jeanette.

To the outside world, the Navins seemed like a family who had it all. According to former neighbor Gail Berman, 60, who lived next to the family in Weston where both Kyle and brother Taylor, 23, attended Weston High School the family seemed ‘exceptionally close.’

She said: ‘The boys were into their extreme sports and Jeanette and Jeffrey were always friendly and smiling.’

Before moving to Easton, she recalled, Jeanette had shared with her that she and Jeffrey planned to retire and go travelling.

Jeffrey was president of trash-hauling company J J Refuse and for the past 18 years Jeanette had worked as a paraprofessional at the Weston Intermediary School Library.

Son Kyle is listed as the general manager of his father’s company.

The Weston home in which the family lived until June is the image of affluent comfort. Valued at $940,000 it is set on a quiet rural street where houses sit back from the road at the end of long driveways amid substantial gardens.

But since their disappearance a very different picture of the family’s situation has emerged with the revelation that the Navins were in debt to the tune of $2.23million on a foreclosed million-dollar home Jeffrey owned at 7 Hart Road in Guilford.

Navin had been fighting the HSBC bank since 2007 when the bank filed the foreclosure claiming that he had failed to pay $1.3million in mortgage arrears. Eight years later the case is still pending in New Haven Court.

Navin was also the subject of a second foreclosure involving a different property, which was sold in 2012 to resolve the case.

In June Jeanette Navin sold this 4-bedroom, 3-bath home in Weston for $900,000, which she had owned in her name since 1994, after a series of financial disasters that left the couple $2.23million in debt

The utility company Eversource sued Navin last year claiming he owed close to $140,600 in unpaid electrical bills for the Guilford home.

The couple sold their Weston home – which had been in Jeanette’s sole name since 1994 – on 1 June for $900,000 and moved to a rental home less than a half its size in Easton.

Two weeks before their disappearance, on July 22, an appeals court ruled that Navin did not have the right to reargue the HSBC and Eversource cases. But relatives have been swift to issue a statement insisting that the couples’ disappearance is nothing to do with debt issues.

And the discovery of Jeffery’s Dodge pickup on August 9, two days after they were reported missing, cast a sinister light on what fate may have befallen the Navins.

The vehicle was abandoned in a commuter lot off the Merritt Parkway, detectives have said that the passenger window was smashed in and ‘physiological fluid’ believed to be blood along with a bullet hole was discovered inside.

Similarly Kyle’s rapidly changing version of his own movements and the last time he had any contact with his parents is difficult to reconcile with the innocent explanation that the couple abandoned their Connecticut lives of their own volition.

Interviewed on August 7 he told investigators he had last seen his parents on the morning of August 4 when they visited him and asked him to dinner that evening.

He claimed to have declined the invitation because he was in pain from a back injury that, he said, rendered him unable to work.

His mother told former neighbor Ms Berman that Kyle needed a surgery and was in almost constant pain.

But two days later, on August 9, Kyle amended his account to claim that he also spoke to his father ‘sometime around noon’ when he called to ask about a new customer.

On August 11 law enforcement officers met with Kyle again at Easton Police Department and the 27-year-old this time gave an elaborate account of meeting his mother at the park and ride near Exit 42 on the Merritt Parkway in Wesport claiming that they had started his garbage collection route together in his truck before back pain made it impossible for him to continue.

Kyle claimed that he called his father who met them to pick up his mother and that he then went home where he remained until around 12. 30 when he drove to his parents’ house to pick up his paycheck that his father had left taped to the door.

Finally on August 13 in a recorded interview he told officers that he met both Jeffery and Jeanette at the nursery in Westport at around 6.30am.

There, Jeanette got into his truck and the two began his regular pick-up route until his back made it too painful for him to continue.

He claimed that he and his mother drove back to his home in Bridgeport to pick up paperwork detailing his route so that Jeanette could complete it for him.

He said they then both drove to meet Jeffrey, that Jeanette got into Jeffery’s truck and that Kyle went home before being called by his father and reminded to pick up his pay check, taped to the door of the family’s Easton home.

Lights out: A local utility comapny sued Navin last year claiming he owed close to $140,600 in unpaid electrical bills for this Guilford home

He claimed that the only communication between him and his father was work related – a claim subsequently blown out of the water by a series of chilling text messages revealed in the affidavit.

They chronicle a bizarre exchange between father and son in which, at one point, Jeffrey asks his son ‘Did you hurt mom?’ and states ‘I’m not going home till I know mom is okay…I go home and get framed for murder.’ In another he bluntly states, ‘U R setting me up.’

Analysis of Jeanette and Jeffrey’s cell phone activity places both in the vicinity of their son’s Bridgeport home when their phones were last used before being switched off.

And security camera footage has revealed images of Kyle driving Jeffrey’s truck to his parents’ home in Easton, followed closely behind by his girlfriend, Jennifer Valiant. The couple then drove away in Valiant’s car.

Valiant initially told investigators that she was at home until confronted with the video evidence.

Meanwhile searches of Kyle’s home have revealed that the once star athlete was in the grips of drug addiction uncovering drug paraphernalia, baggies containing Oxycodone and Xanax and numerous hypodermic needles containing residues of heroin.

They also found Kyle’s gun without which, according to one unnamed friend, he was rarely seen (according to girlfriend Valiant, Kyle ‘really likes his gun’) as well as a Home Depot receipt for germicidal bleach, hair and grease drain opener, Goo Gone stain remover and contractor cleanup bags.

Neither the police nor members of the Navin family commented when approached by Daily Mail Online.