Man was given 65-year sentence after Fitbit proved he was lying about wife's murder
On 23 December 2015, Connie Dabate was murdered at her home in Ellington, Connecticut.
While her husband, Richard, initially claimed an intruder had broken in and killed her, it was later proven that he was lying.
The case in the US became known as the ‘Fitbit murder’ with a documentary releasing on Amazon Prime Video (15 September) exploring this.
The Fitbit Killer shows how Connie’s fitness device had tracked her movements on the day she died, contradicting Richard’s version of events.
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He was sentenced to 65 years in prison for her death and last year, lost his appeal which questioned the reliability of the Fitbit evidence and whether the judge was wrong to have allowed it. The Supreme Court ruled that Richard was not deprived of a fair trial.
During the original 2022 trial, jurors heard how he claimed a 6-foot-2-inch masked intruder broke into the couple’s home two days before Christmas while their two sons were in school.
In his defence, he testified and said the killer had a voice like actor Vin Diesel.
Richard claimed the intruder tied him up and tortured him and then shot and killed Connie.
The father claimed he had taken their children to the bus stop, gone back home to grab a ‘work shirt’, returning at around 9am when he was attacked by the intruder. He said his wife was still home and getting ready for a fitness class.
However, police gathered evidence which contradicted Richard’s version of events.
And in 2017, a spokesperson for Connecticut State Police told PEOPLE: "His story made no sense.”
Officers used records from various devices, with a Fitbit worn by Connie showing that she didn’t take her last movements until 10:05 – over an hour after her husband claimed he watched her die.
She was also active on Facebook between 9:40 and 9:46am while Richard emailed his work supervisor at 9:04am to tell his supervisor an alarm had gone off at the house and he’d have to go back to check it.
And police sniffer dogs didn’t pick up the scent of anyone else in the house in the hours before Connie’s death.
Richard was found by police with an arm and leg zip-tied to a chair in the kitchen with what was described as superficial knife wounds.
Investigators said he had text his wife a year before her murder saying: “I want a divorce.”
Prosecutors said Richard wanted Connie dead, in part because he was having a years-long affair with another woman who was pregnant at the time.
Richard maintained his innocence and had claimed all three planned to co-parent the child.
A spokesperson for Connie’s family told The Associated Press following his conviction: “The trial was not about Fitbit. The trial was about the cold-blooded, planned murder of Connie Margotta Dabate."
Richard was found guilty of murder, tampering with evidence, and making false statements to the police and given a 65 year jail sentence.
The Fitbit Killer is available to stream on Prime Video from 15 September.
Topics: True Crime, Documentaries, US News
Jess Battison