Cornel Myers, convicted of murdering Danielle Fasciocco.
A Connecticut man will likely die behind bars after being sentenced to decades in prison earlier this week for the brutal murder of a woman he dated for a short while during the summer of 2018.
Danielle Marie Fasciocco was a beloved teacher who worked with special needs children at a STEM-focused magnet school in Hartford. According to her obituary, she was “passionate about her students and teaching” and loved her deaf rescue dog, Nova, and her two cats.
“She enjoyed vacationing with family and friends, the beach, cooking, Farmer Markets, Starbucks, crafts and her favorite band was Pearl Jam,” the tribute to her cut-short life reads. Fasciocco was just 29 years old when she was murdered by a man she barely knew.
Cornel Myers, 39, met his victim at the Hunter’s Crossing apartments in Middletown, Conn. By mid-August 2018, Fasciocco was more than done with the brief relationship, calling police to say that she was being stalked after trying to end things, according to Hartford-based Fox affiliate WTIC. Exactly three weeks later, she was dead.
On Sept. 8, 2018, Myers himself called 911 to say he found Fasciocco slumped over her bed and bleeding – after letting himself into her apartment with a key around 3:00 a.m. Officers immediately suspected the defendant due to “a dried red substance” on his hands.
The victim’s throat had been cut and she was repeatedly stabbed all over her body. The medical examiner ruled her death a homicide and determined she died due to “sharp force injury to the neck and torso.”
A largely incomprehensible note was found at the scene that read:
I did not do it again I did not do it…you guys are the reason for this. You guys are the cause of this … I hope you Lady are happy now that the reason why I do it I write this so yoo know everyone is gonna really think I kill her This is what yoo want for me to get in trouble she would’n be by ‘her self.
Myers, police said, appeared drunk when they arrived. He would later tell law enforcement that he wrote the note while on the phone with he 911 dispatcher because he didn’t think he would be able to “explain himself” and believed that he would be blamed for what happened to his ex-girlfriend, “because of the circumstances,” according to court documents obtained by The Middletown Press.
Evidence presented during trial showed he was exactly who to blame.
Prosecutors argued – and jurors believed – the defendant entered the victim’s home around 10:30 p.m. the night before and attacked her with at least two knives. One knife was found next to Fasciocco’s body on her own bed. The other, with a broken tip, was found in a trash can. Both of those murder weapons were covered in blood.
The murder, law enforcement said, began in the kitchen – where blood was also found on the cabinets. By the end of the attack, the fifth grade teacher’s neck was “severely cut,” and she was left in a “kneeling position” on the floor – with her body leaning against her bed and her back to the door of her bedroom, the Press reported.
The arrest warrant for the defendant described the crime as a “horrid butchering,” WTIC reported.
In the weeks leading up to the vicious slaughter, Fasciocco had often complained about Myers sending her “thousands” of text messages. She also told police that her eventual killer had shown up to her door, unwanted, over 10 times.
The Friday before she died, police were even called to the apartment complex over reports of a man and woman having a loud argument. Officers knocked, but no one answered, so they left. The night she died, Fasciocco had been commiserating with friends at The Flying Monkey Bar & Grill, complaining about her “legit crazy” ex-boyfriend and the fusillade of text messages he kept sending and she kept ignoring.
Minutes after returning home from that get-together, she was killed.
“I don’t know how I keep finding these types of men,” one of the victim’s friends told police she said that night before leaving.
“This case shows the devastating effect domestic violence can have not only on the victim but also on the victim’s family members and friends,” Middlesex State’s Attorney Michael A. Gailor said in a statement obtained by the News Times. “We would like to thank the victim’s family members and friends for their patience during the prosecution and the Middletown Police Department and the Connecticut State Police for their work on the investigation.”
Myers was convicted after a two-week trial last November. His court proceedings were delayed on multiple occasions due to the Covid-19 pandemic. He was sentenced by Judge Vernon Oliver on Friday.
“In a city that needs teachers, [Fasciocco was] stolen for no reason because you would not take no for an answer,” the judge told the largely emotionless defendant during the sentencing hearing, according to a courtroom report by WTIC.
“Cornel Myers a coward,” Joe Fasciocco reportedly said during a victim impact statement. “He’s a coward. He’s a scum bag.”
“The world lost a beacon of a light when my niece’s life was cut short by the cruel act of another,” the deceased woman’s aunt said. “As a teacher and a person, she led her life with purpose and compassion.”
[image via Middletown Police Department]