DANBURY – A 34-year-old man facing felony charges stemming from incidents in the Danbury area was at one point a suspect in the disappearance of a 20-year-old man who was reported missing just over a year ago , according to a police affidavit. .
The warrant stems from a motor vehicle theft Christopher Lemke is accused of committing two days before DoorDash driver and for-hire driver Carlos Reyes was last seen by his family around 11 p.m. of March 28, 2022. No one has been charged. in Reyes’ disappearance, but police had said last year that they believed Lemke had information related to Reyes’ whereabouts. Lemke’s attorney could not be reached for comment.
The warrant largely details the police investigation into a car stolen from a Mobil gas station at the corner of Main and North streets in Danbury on March 26, 2022. Lemke, who is in custody awaiting trial for kidnapping, home invasion and other charges. stemming from a separate incident, he was charged last month with theft of a firearm, second- and third-degree burglary and first-degree reckless endangerment in the gas station incident.
Police said the Toyota Avalon was found fully engulfed in flames in Bethel the day after it was stolen from the gas station, according to the warrant.
The warrant notes that New York State Police had discovered Reyes’ vehicle on fire around midnight on March 29, 2022.
“Fire officials determined the fire to be an arson,” the warrant states. “This investigation developed Christopher Lemke as a suspect.”
Danbury police have declined to comment on the Reyes case, referring questions to the FBI, which is also involved in the investigation. The FBI did not return requests for comment. Danbury public information specialist Erin Henry declined to say last week whether there was a connection between the Reyes investigation and Lemke’s latest charges.
Gas station incident
According to the arrest warrant affidavit, a woman was checking the engine oil level in her 2011 Toyota Avalon around 11:50 p.m. on March 26, 2022 when a man got into the driver’s seat from the vehicle and drove off. He told police that, among other items, there was a Glock model 42, .380 caliber handgun that contained six rounds of ammunition in the car.
Police said surveillance video from the gas station showed a man, later identified as Lemke, walking behind the car, carrying what appeared to be a cup containing an orange-colored beverage, according to the warrant.
He placed the drink in the trunk of the victim’s car before jumping into the driver’s seat, taking off with the hood of the vehicle still up and heading east on North Street, according to the warrant. Police said he almost hit the victim with the vehicle, but she managed to swerve, according to the warrant.
Other surveillance footage showed Lemke getting out of a light-colored sedan before walking to the gas station, and the light-colored sedan taking off in the same direction after stealing the Toyota Avalon, according to the warrant.
Police spoke with a woman who said that on the night of March 26, 2022, Lemke and another woman drove from the 7-11 on Federal Highway to North Street, according to the warrant. The other woman in the car told police she got out of the car at North and Main streets, walked to the Mobil gas station and stole a car, according to the warrant.
She told police they then went to where Lemke lived in Bethel and he “took a gun out of the car and she thought he blew it up” (the car) the next day, the warrant states.
Surveillance footage from the Clarke Business Park in Bethel showed the stolen Toyota Avalon and the first woman’s vehicle driving through the industrial park around 9:22 a.m. and her car leaving the property about 10 minutes later, according to the order.
Danbury police said they learned the next morning that the stolen vehicle had been found fully engulfed in flames at the Francis J. Clarke Industrial Park in Bethel.
On April 7, 2022, police executed a search and seizure warrant at a property on Ball Pond Road after learning Lemke had recently lived there, according to the warrant. The affidavit says residents of the address told police that Lemke “recently moved out” after residing there “for a week or so.”
At the time, Danbury police told Hearst Connecticut Media Group they searched Ball Pond Road for possible evidence or leads related to the Reyes case and collected “surveillance footage and evidence associated with the missing person.”
According to the recently obtained arrest warrant for Lemke, identification and insurance cards from the stolen Toyota Avalon were found during the search.
Police later learned Lemke was staying at a home in Newtown and obtained a search and seizure warrant while they tried to recover the firearm in the Toyota Avalon, the warrant said.
When officers served the warrant on April 14, 2022, Lemke fled the home on foot, held a woman at gunpoint, stole a vehicle and led police on a chase that ended with him crashing the vehicle stolen in Southbury, police said.
State police arrested Lemke and found him in possession of the stolen gun, which contained five rounds of ammunition, police said. When police returned the gun to its owner, she “confirmed that she would keep six rounds in the Glock,” according to the warrant.
According to the warrant, Lemke refused to speak to Danbury detectives after he was arrested, except to say he wanted a lawyer, followed by “I’m a drug addict, what do you expect?”
Man missing for more than 1 year
According to Reyes’ case page on the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, authorities believe he “encountered a suspect (possibly related to narcotics trafficking) in Danbury, CT and subsequently disappeared.”
Henry said in February that a city detective had updated the description on the page “to make it a little more real.”
Before the update, he said Reyes had met up with an unidentified person in Danbury, who authorities determined had stolen and “subsequently killed him” before burning Reyes’ vehicle in Brewster, New York.
The Berkshire Eagle reported on May 9, 2022 that the FBI searched Sheffield, Massachusetts for the body of someone who lived or died in Danbury, but no body was found during the two-day search.
Lemke is being held at MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Suffield, according to the state Department of Corrections, and is scheduled to be arraigned on his latest charges April 10 in state Superior Court in Danbury.
