Crime & Safety

Middletown Police Seize Vehicle Believed Involved in Bassett's Hit-and-Run Death

Video surveillance led Middletown and State Police investigators to seize the motor vehicle that may have killed 15-year-old Cailyn Bassett of Clinton Friday night as she walked on Saybrook Road.

 

Middletown Police are collecting evidence from a vehicle they suspect was involved in Friday night’s fatal hit-and-run accident that took the life of Clinton teen Cailyn Bassett as she walked along Saybrook Road.

Bassett, 15 and a 10th-grader at the Morgan School in Clinton, was struck and killed in Middletown on Dec. 7 at 5:45 p.m., police said, near the intersection of Coe Avenue.

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“We have a vehicle of interest that is being processed with the Connecticut State Police major crime squad,” Middletown Police Lt. Heather Desmond said. Officers were led to the vehicle after obtaining video surveillance from the area, allowing them to “identify the vehicle that it would probably be,” she said.

The vehicle investigators seized is not a car, she said, but declined to offer information about it or the suspected driver.

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“Until we confirm one way or another, I’m not going to give any descriptors because if it turns out it’s not the vehicle, I don’t want to falsely accuse anybody,” Desmond said.

Clinton Superintendent of Schools Jack Cross confirmed that Cailyn has a younger sister and two younger brothers, and was a member of the Church of the Open Door.

It’s unclear how long processing will take, Desmond said. The gathering of information typically takes a few hours and then some of it will be sent to the lab.

Although this incident is considered severe enough to put it at the top of the lab’s priorities, the medical examiner’s office handles cases for the entire state, so the swiftness of evidence processing depends upon caseload. 


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