MINEOLA, N.Y. — A man suspected of what police are calling the “psychosexual” killing and dismemberment of a retired teacher kept an extensive pornographic video collection that is currently being examined for possible links to the killing, Nassau County police said Tuesday.
Detectives also have contacted counterparts in northern California, Arizona and south Florida to determine whether there are any unsolved homicides that match the description of the Long Island case because the suspected killer was known to have spent time in those locations. Suffolk County detectives also are aiding in the investigation because they have two unsolved homicides involving decapitations.
Evan Marshall, 31, of Glen Cove, is being held without bail on a second-degree murder charge in the brutal slaying last Thursday of Denice Fox at her home inside an exclusive gated community in Glen Cove. Police said Marshall, who lived on the same street, kept the victim’s body parts inside several trash bins in the basement of his home – except for the head, which was found in his 1990 Toyota when he was arrested on Friday.
Two large kitchen carving knives, which have been recovered, are the suspected murder weapons. Marshall, a bedding salesman, had been scheduled for a court appearance Tuesday, but it was adjourned until Aug. 30. His defense attorney, William Keahon, declined to speak with reporters. Assistant District Attorney Mitch Benson said the case was being referred to a grand jury for possible upgrade of charges.
Fox, 57, was a retired New York City special education school teacher who had just moved to Glen Cove with her family several months ago; police don’t believe the suspect and victim knew each other.
Detective Sgt. Dennis Barry of the Nassau homicide squad, who on Saturday called the killing a “psychosexual murder,” said detectives had seized several boxes of pornographic videos and other materials from Marshall’s home and were currently examining them for possible clues.
“It is our hope that it will give us some motive with respect to this crime,” Barry said at a press conference Tuesday.
Marshall had no violent criminal history, with arrests only for petit larceny and driving while intoxicated, authorities said.
On Thursday, Fox’s daughter called Glen Cove police after she came to her mother’s home and found blood in the vestibule. Police canvassing the neighborhood were allowed into Marshall’s home by his mother, Jackie, and soon made their grisly discovery.
Neither Marshall, nor his mother, have cooperated with the investigation and both have retained lawyers, Barry said.
Marshall also is suspected of using his car to run down a woman walking on a road about a mile away from the Fox home on Thursday morning. The woman was hospitalized, but her injuries were not life-threatening.
Nassau police have contacted the FBI and police departments in several jurisdictions for possible links to the Fox killing.
“We know that he had relatives out in California, we know that he went to Arizona State University, we know that he spent time in southern Florida,” Barry said. He said Marshall has relatives in the Boynton Beach, Fla., area, as well as in San Francisco and Newport Beach, Calif. Marshall also was enrolled in an unspecified rehab clinic in Miami. A spokeswoman at Arizona State University in Tempe confirmed that Marshall graduated in 1997 with a bachelor’s degree in history. He was a student there from 1994 to 1997.
So far, police in those areas have not responded to the inquiries from Nassau County, Barry said.
Nassau police also were looking into possible links involving two unsolved cases in neighboring Suffolk County, where a woman between 30 and 40 was found in November 2000 in a remote area near the Long Island Expressway with her head and hands removed. In 2003, a man’s head was found in a frozen pond in Moriches.