The Screwdriver Killer

In May 1957, George J. Davies was a Connecticut man in his late thirties who had served prison time for molesting two young girls in 1952. When seventeen-year-old Gaetane Boivin placed a newspaper ad looking for housekeeping or babysitting work, Davies answered it. Gaetane left a note saying she had gone to see about a job, and she never returned.

Davies strangled and stabbed her and left her in the woods outside Waterbury. Four days later, nine-year-old Brenda Jane Doucette was walking to school in Bristol when Davies stopped his car, claimed he had a flat tire, and got her inside. He strangled her, stabbed her 22 times with a screwdriver, and dumped her body in brush beside Beacon Heights Road, a quiet dead-end street. Once in custody, he confessed to Brenda’s murder; a hunter then found Gaetane’s body, and he admitted that killing too.

Davies was tried in New Haven County for Brenda’s murder, convicted of first-degree murder, and sentenced to death. On January 8, 1959, the Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors rejected his appeal, which challenged the grand jury and the judge’s instructions on insanity. He was electrocuted at Wethersfield State Prison on October 20, 1959, at age 41.