Connecticut businessman Jeffrey Navin, who went missing with his wife over a month ago, texted his son Kyle accusing him of trying to frame him for killing his wife and asking the 27-year-old if he hurt his mother, according to a bombshell police affidavit.
Kyle Navin, of Bridgeport, was arrested this week on a federal charge of possession of a firearm by a drug user. He has not been charged in connection to his parents’ disappearance.
Jeanette Navin, 55, and Jeffrey Navin, 56, were reported missing August 7 by family members who told Easton police that they have not been seen since August 4. Days later, their Dodge pickup truck was found with a bullet hole and blood stains in Westport.
Shortly after 12.30pm on August 4, Jeffrey Navin texted his son Kyle informing him: ‘I’m not going home till I know mom is okay,’ according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
In the next message, Mr Navin asked: ‘Did you hurt mom?’
‘No absolutely not. Why would you think,’ Kyle Navin responded, according to the affidavit.
‘I go home and get framed for murder,’ Jeffrey Navin then texted.
‘Oh stop,’ Kyle Navin texted back.
‘I’m going to the police first,’ Jeffrey Navin said.
‘Ok and reason being?’ Kyle Navin asked.
Seven minutes later, Jeffrey Navin texted his son, ‘U R setting me up.’
‘Dad really what are you talking about?’ Kyle Navin replied.
Jeffrey Navin made his final phone call less than 10 minutes later.
Police say Jeanetee Navin’s cell phone was last used at 9.20am August 4 near her son’s Bridgeport home. Her husband’s phone was last turned on at 1.23pm that afternoon in the same area, according to the affidavit.
The affidavit also says when police searched the younger Mr Navin’s residence on Aldine Avenue last month, they recovered two firearms, ammunition and evidence he was using heroin, oxycodone and other controlled substances.
The search also yielded a receipt from Home Depot dated August 5 – the day after the Navin couple’s disappearance – for germicidal bleach, a stain remover called ‘Goo Gone,’ a drain opener and contractor cleanup bags.
Police have searched landfills, including a 186-acre ash dump, around the state but have found no signs of human remains.
Authorities said that when interviewed by police on three separate occasions in August, Kyle Navin told three conflicting versions of his actions the day his parents went missing.
Jeffrey Navin is president of the Westport-based trash-hauling company J & J Refuse, and his wife has worked the past 18 years as a paraprofessional at the Weston Intermediary School library.
Their son Kyle is listed as the general manager at his father’s company.
The Weston Forum reported that Kyle is a 2006 graduate of Weston High School, where he was a star hockey player.
During his first encounter with police in connection to his parents’ disappearance August 9, Kyle told detectives he last saw his parents August 4 at work.
Two days later, Kyle changed his story, telling police he last saw his mother when he dropped her off in his garbage truck near exit 42, where she met up with her husband and got into his truck.
After picking up his pay check from his parents’ Easton home that day, Kyle said he spent the next three days at his home because of a back injury.
On August 13, Kyle Navin offered an alternative version of events, telling police he met both his parents on the morning of August 4 in the exit 42 parking lot. He said back pain prevented him from finishing his garbage route that day, so he picked up his mother and drove her to his house to pick up documents that outlined his regular route so she could take over.
The mother and son then drove to Wesport, according to Navin, where Jeanette got into her husband’s truck.
The younger Navin ‘denied discussing any issue related to his mother or her safety’ on the phone with his father the day he and Jeanette went missing, according to the complaint. However, the text message exchange between the father and son detailed in the affidavit refutes his claim.
Sources told the Hartford Courant that Kyle has refused to take a polygraph test when questioned by state police detectives.
If convicted of possessing a firearm while being an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance, Kyle Navin could be sentenced to up to 10 years in federal prison.
While the Navins’ disappearance is still classified as a missing persons case, in late August Bridgeport State Attorney John Smirga asked the Major Crime Squad for assistance with the case, reported CT Post.
Detectives reportedly have been busy going through reams of the couple’s financial records and call logs in search of clues, as well as interviewing their friends and co-workers.
On August 9, two days after receiving the missing persons report, the Connecticut State Police found the Navins’ pickup truck abandoned in a commuter lot off the Merritt Parkway.
Detectives found a ‘physiological fluid’ believed to be blood and a bullet hole inside the 2013 Dodge pickup.
Earlier in the investigation, documents emerged revealing that the Navins are deeply in debt.
Those familiar with the Navins said the couple have been known to go on vacations often. Until recently, they had resided in a sprawling 4-bedroom, 3-bath luxury home in Weston valued at more than $940,000.
But court records show that behind the Navins’ facade of upper-middle-class prosperity, financial woes were lurking.
Easton Courtier reported that last year, Mr Navin was found to owe HSBC Bank close to $2.23million on a foreclosed million-dollar house he owned at 7 Hart Road in Guilford.
Navin has been fighting the bank since 2007, when HSBC filed the foreclosure claiming that he had failed to pay $1.3million in mortgage.
Eight years later, the case is still pending in New Haven Court.
Navin was also the subject of a second foreclosure action involving a different property, which was sold in 2012 to resolve the case.
The utility company Eversource, formerly known as Connecticut Light & Power, sued Navin last year claiming he owed close to $140,600 in unpaid electrical bills for the Guilford home.
On June 1, Jeanette Navin sold the 4,042-square foot Weston mansion, which she had owned in her name since 1994, for $900,000, and the family moved into a more humble 1,884-square-foot rental home on Staples Road in Easton.
Two weeks before their disappearance, on July 22, an appeals court ruled that Navin did not have the right to reargue the HSBC and Connecticut Light & Power cases.
Relatives issued a statement denying the couple’s disappearance is related to the debt.
The statement went on to say that based on information obtained from investigators, Jeffery and Jeanette still have available funds on their banks accounts, which have not been touched since August 4.
‘We are shocked and saddened at the unexpected disappearance of Jeff and Jeanette Navin. There are no words to describe the impact this has had on their parents, siblings, and children.
We wish only for their safe return and we ask for anyone who has seen either of them since Tuesday, August 4th, to contact the Easton police,’ the family statement read.
