Lawsuit: Branford Police, Hospital Failed Woman, 21, Murdered By Ex

(Editor's note: This report is based on hundreds of pages of documents obtained by Patch via the Freedom of Information Act.)

BRANFORD, CT — The town's police department is the first in the state to have a full time social worker on staff, a commitment by police more than two years ago to address the daily mental health-related calls for service. Those often include domestic incidents. Read that story here.

Police Chief Jon Mulhern, though given the department is facing litigation and is confined to only releasing a statement, has told Patch in the past, and now, that Branford cops are devoted to ensuring that well-trained officers respond to these calls.

But tragically, one such Branford-based domestic led to an August 2022 murder-suicide, albeit not in the town of Branford, but in Wethersfield.

Then-Branford resident and North Branford dentist Michael Mollow, 59, shot and killed his then former girlfriend, 21-year-old Caroline Ashworth, 38 years his junior, and then turned a gun on himself in the summer of 2022, police have said.

Days before, Mollow had voluntarily checked himself into a psychiatric hospital and told clinicians that he was homicidal, with those thoughts directed toward Ashworth, according to released documents. He also confirmed that he owned firearms, documents state.

A clinician contacted Branford police under the mandated "duty to warn," to alert authorities that Ashworth may be in danger, documents state. But a veteran Branford police officer did not follow through, documents revealed.

Documents state that he failed to notify Ashworth. He failed to do a background check on Mollow, search for possible warrants or domestic protection orders, nor did he perform a firearms or weapons search, much less a cursory weapons check, released documents state.

Mollow walked out of St. Vincent's Hospital in Westport the day after being admitted. A couple of days later, he traveled to Wethersfield, where Ashworth was reportedly with a new boyfriend.

On the night of Aug. 27, Mollow shot Ashworth a number of times and then shot himself in the chest and head, police said and court documents show. Read that story here.

Internal police investigation

After an internal police investigation, documented in an 3-inch thick file obtained by Patch, Branford police determined that police officer Robert Iovanna, hired in 2017 after serving as a Hartford police officer for 13 years, failed to perform his duties.

The file includes the department's stringent policy and procedures on crisis intervention, domestic violence training including firearms seizures in cases of "at risk" warnings; for people who pose a threat to themselves and others. Mollow had already been determined to be a threat to Ashworth as told to cops by mental health workers, documents show. Iovanna had undertaken all that training. And more.

As the internal police investigation headed up by Branford police Deputy Chief John Alves reveals, Iovanna knew Mollow had weapons, documents show. He knew Mollow had homicidal ideation towards Ashworth, documents state. He failed to contact Ashworth, who albeit was reportedly in Alabama at the time and had no voicemail set up, and stopped trying to reach her, documents show.

He did not run a weapons check on Mollow, documents show. He did not attempt to seize weapons the dentist owned, according to documents. He did not run a background check, search for warrants or to see if there were any active restraining or protective orders, according to documents. He also did not note in his report that Mollow told clinicians at Midstate Hospital and at St. Vincent's Hospital that he wanted to kill Ashworth and that Mollow had guns, according to documents.

Iovanna instead wrote: "(Mollow) might hurt his ex-girlfriend."

Alves wrote that Iovanna's report "minimized the plan Mollow had and level of potential violence to reviewing supervisors." The report reads that Iovanna's "failure to recognize that a Risk Protection Order should have been applied for is a serious failure which can adversely impact the reputation of the police department and erode public trust."

"Officer Iovanna's investigation did not meet the standard expected of a veteran Branford police officer," the investigation found.

And Iovanna was not the only police officer who was investigated and disciplined; his superiors were as well.

Ultimately, in November 2022, Iovanna was given a 30-day unpaid suspension.

Branford police union president Sgt. Stosh Konesky declined comment on the matter.

Lawsuit filed against Branford police

Last Wednesday, Ashworth's mother notified police, St. Vincent's Hospital and the Mollow estate, via summons that she was suing both. The lawsuit was officially filed in state Superior Court Tuesday.

Ashworth Estate v BPD, SVMC... by Ellyn Santiago

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In the days before the murder-suicide, Branford police had been called to the home where Mollow and Ashworth lived, according to documents. Twice.

As noted in the internal police probe, that in both cases, officers did not have "probable cause" for arrests as "both complaints involved unsubstantiated allegations made against each other, lacked independent witnesses and lacked cooperation by both Mollow and Ashworth to pursue formal complaints or make statements.

The first, Aug. 9, 2022, was in response to a 911 call that Ashworth made where she told cops she feared for her life, according to documents. Mollow told police his then-girlfriend was seeing other men. In that call, it's reported that there were unsecured guns in the house, documents state. The next 911 call had Ashworth telling officers that Mollow as exhibiting escalating "controlling behavior," including accessing her cell phone and tracking her movements via GPS, the lawsuit claims. In the case of the latter behavior, it's alleged that Mollow convinced Ashworth to use her vehicle as a trade-in on a Ford truck, with her as co-owner and loan co-signer. It's alleged that he then took title to the truck in his name alone and used a GPS app to track her movements, the lawsuit claims.

After the murder-suicide, police seized several shotguns, pistols, crossbows, a rifle, and reams of ammunition from Mollow's Branford home, documents state. Other properties out of state were also searched and weapons seized.

Mulhern told Patch last week that while he cannot address case specifics, the department immediately conducted an investigation following the murder-suicide, and corrective actions were taken. He said it is important for the community to know that police will "continue our daily efforts to combat domestic violence and provide mental health services" to victims.

"We thank the public for their patience and continued support of our agency at this time," Mulhern wrote in a statement later issued to the media.