Inset: Theodore Lloyd (Connecticut Department of Corrections). Background: West Haven, Connecticut, home where Llyod’s mother was found chopped up (Google Maps).
Authorities conducting a welfare check on a 70-year-old woman made a grisly discovery when they found her body chopped up and remains placed in 14 to 16 trash bags in a locked closet at her West Haven, Connecticut, home.
Now her 27-year-old son, Theodore Lloyd, stands accused of attempted arson and trespassing after officers found he tried to torch the home. Cops say additional charges are coming down against Lloyd in the death of his mother Tina Lloyd and they believe he acted alone.
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The investigation began on March 24 when Tina Lloyd’s older son asked West Haven police to conduct a welfare check on her at her home on Nashawen Avenue, according to a press release. When officers arrived, they were met with a smell of a decomposing body. They entered the home and found 14 to 16 trash bags in a closet with dismembered body parts. There was also evidence of an attempted arson, cops said.
“The victim’s body was in such a state of decomposition that positive identification took some time,” West Haven police Chief Joe Perno told reporters at a press conference on Friday.
Tina Lloyd was positively identified through DNA examination and comparison, Perno said. Detectives pored through “thousands” of pieces of evidence. Key to identifying Theodore Lloyd as a suspect was surveillance video of him leaving Home Depot and Walmart with items used in the dismemberment, cops said.
“There were several cutting utensils, there was an electric chainsaw and things of that nature,” Det. Jeff Gavinelli said. “A lot of the items were concealed in plastic bags, either in an attempt to be hidden or destroyed, but that was all retrieved by our ID unit.”
There was also paper and lighter fluid in the home which police believe was intended to start a fire, according to cops.
Police said the suspect lived with his mother until 2018 when he moved out after a domestic incident. He was homeless at the time of his mom’s death, per cops.
Perno did not give a motive for the slaying. Hartford police arrested Theodore Lloyd on April 14 and turned him over to West Haven cops. He’s currently in jail on a $1 million bond.
Neighbors said they hadn’t seen Tina Lloyd in two or three months.
“We missed her, we hadn’t seen her,” Denny Steeves told local Fox affiliate WTIC. “We didn’t know where she was.”
Despite being older, she was still active, Steeves said.
“She would go up and down the street with her walker, and if she came home with a lot of groceries, I’d ask her, ‘Tina do you want me to help you with your groceries?’ and she’d go, ‘no this is how I get my exercise’. Very, very nice lady. Tragic, tragic,” Steeves said in an interview with local CBS affiliate WSFB.
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