Records: Suspect in Ansonia homicide, missing baby case told former girlfriend he would ‘break all of her bones’
The New Haven man labeled the prime suspect in the murder of an Ansonia woman and the disappearance of their 1-year-old daughter has a violent criminal history that includes pinning a former girlfriend to the ground and threatening to “break all of her bones,” according to court records obtained by the Courant.
The court records detailing Morales’ prior arrests show he was convicted twice in 2012 for incidents involving an ex-girlfriend. In the first case, Morales pinned the woman to the floor and threatened her at her mother’s home in Meriden. He received probation. In the second case, just a few months later, he was charged with breach of peace and violating his probation after a West Haven police officer witnessed a confrontation between Morales and the woman. He received a nine-month jail sentence.
On June 24, 2012, Meriden police received a 911 call from the victim’s mother saying her daughter’s boyfriend was high on PCP and acting strange, according to an arrest report. The woman said Morales and her daughter came home around 1:30 a.m. and a short time later she heard a thump.
The woman said as she went to investigate she heard her daughter yell “knock it off, you’re freaking me out,” according to the report. She opened the bedroom door slightly and saw “Jose holding her daughter down on the floor.”
The woman told police she heard Morales say “I’m going to break all your bones.”
She yelled that she was going to call police and as she called 911 Morales got off her daughter and went to lie on the bed, according to the arrest report.
When police arrived they found Morales lying naked on the bed and unable to answer questions, the report said. His girlfriend, who also admitted to being on PCP, denied anything had happened, but she did admit that she had a protective order against Morales because “they had gotten into a fight while on PCP,” according to the report.
Morales was charged with violating a protective order and disorderly conduct. He pleaded no contest to the charges and two months later received a three-year prison sentence that was suspended and two years of probation, court records show.
Morales was on probation less than two months when he was arrested again in October 2012 after another altercation with the same woman.
A West Haven police officer was patrolling on Campbell Avenue on the evening of Oct. 1, 2012 and saw Morales and two women — one with a child in a stroller — walking south when Morales reached out and “maliciously grabbed one of the females’ arms,” according to an arrest affidavit filed by Probation Officer Robert Archibald.
“The victim was frantically trying to break free,” he wrote.
The woman got away but Morales ran in front of her and grabbed her again, according to the affidavit. The West Haven officer told Morales to get his hands off the woman. Morales yelled at the officer, “I did nothing wrong, I’m just talking to my girlfriend,” according to the affidavit.
Morales was charged with breach of peace by West Haven police but Archibald had him charged with violating his probation because the woman he was arguing with was the same one from the Meriden case only months earlier. Morales once again got a three-year sentence, only this time he served nine months in prison and was given two years’ probation, court records show.
