CT CT - Lester 'Chip' Stewart, 27, Litchfield Co., Sept 1978

Already facing serious drug charges, Kenneth Gelormino Jr. walked into the Litchfield state police barracks 18 months ago, hoping the contents of the bag he was carrying could solve his legal troubles.

He gave the bag to detectives, who were startled to discover what was inside — bones from a human arm.

Gelormino told police the bones belonged to Lester "Chip" Stewart, who had been reported missing in January 1980, 16 months after he was last seen in Litchfield County — in September 1978.

Police had long suspected that Stewart was the victim of a drug deal gone bad.

Gelormino, who lived in Torrington, told authorities he got the bones from his father, Kenneth Gelormino Sr. The son said his father, facing a life-threatening disease, told him a gruesome secret: He and another man killed Stewart, burned his body and buried it under a stone wall.

The elder Gelormino had kept the bones as collateral to blackmail his former partner, and he wanted his son to use the bones to continue to extort money from the man, who had since moved to Arizona.

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Once DNA results showed that the bones were Stewart's, detectives started checking out the rest of Gelormino's tale - which led them to the stone wall in Morris. But before police could take the wall apart, they needed permission from the Litchfield Land Trust because the previous owners of the property had obtained a conservation easement.The easement is a legal agreement between a property owner and a land trust that permanently restricts uses of land to protect it from development.
"We certainly are going to do what we can to further justice, so we weren't going to tell them not to take apart a stone wall," Litchfield Land Trust President Jon Fulkerson said in a recent interview.
State police did not tell the land trust why they needed access to the property, although Fulkerson said he "assumed it was to look for a body or evidence in a criminal case." He would not reveal the address of the property.
It's unclear why state police did not get a search warrant from a court.
State police also would not reveal where they are digging or whether they have found anything that could lead them to Stewart's body. But spokesman Lt. Paul Vance said the case is "very active."
"The investigation has been ongoing for about 18 months," Vance said. "Some new witnesses have been found and new leads pursued, and we anticipate bringing this case to the next level very soon."

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