Grandmother describes Enfield suspect's emotional distance

Aug. 11—ENFIELD — After Harlee Swols was charged with assaulting James Samuel Bell, the boyfriend of her maternal grandmother, Maryrose Riach, during a July 7 argument in the apartment the three of them shared on Alden Avenue, a court order banned Swols from having any contact with Bell, forcing her to move out.

So Swols, 22, moved into a basement room in the home of her other grandmother, Lynn Olden, on Booth Road, a short distance across town. Swols lived there until Sunday, when police arrested her back in the Alden Avenue apartment, where they found Bell dead, his throat slashed, and Riach dying of similar wounds.

During the weeks Swols lived in the Booth Road house, "she never addressed me by my name, never called me Nana," Olden recalled Tuesday.

Olden says she hadn't seen Swols in more than 10 years. But she describes patterns of behavior going beyond shyness around a relative Swols didn't know well.

Olden said Swols would come up from her basement room only to take a shower before going back downstairs.

"She wouldn't even eat our food," Olden said. She added that Swols also wouldn't use the kitchen, instead keeping a table of her own food in the basement.

"She was very, very alone," Olden said, adding that Swols has no friends.

Swols' father — who lives in North Carolina but was visiting Enfield when she was arrested July 7 — had set certain conditions when he bonded her out, including that she move out of Olden's home by her next court date, Aug. 26, and get a second job. She had been working part time at a doughnut shop.

'Didn't want help'

Olden said she and other family members offered to help Swols when the time came for her to move into her own apartment but added, "She didn't want any help. She wanted nothing from anybody."

HARD TO REACH

SUSPECT: HARLEE SWOLS, 22, WHO MOST RECENTLY LIVED WITH HER PATERNAL GRANDMOTHER AT 25 BOOTH ROAD IN ENFIELD AND EARLIER LIVED WITH HER OTHER GRANDMOTHER AND THAT GRANDMOTHER'S BOYFRIEND AT 17-B ALDEN AVE. IN ENFIELD.

CHARGE: VIOLATING A FAMILY VIOLENCE PROTECTIVE ORDER, ALTHOUGH POLICE SAY FURTHER CHARGES ARE EXPECTED IN THE SUNDAY INCIDENT IN WHICH SWOLS' MATERNAL GRANDMOTHER, MARYROSE RIACH, 72, AND HER GRANDMOTHER'S BOYFRIEND, JAMES SAMUEL BELL, 63, WERE SLASHED TO DEATH

PERSONALITY: SWOLS WAS QUIET AND "VERY, VERY ALONE," ACCORDING TO HER SURVIVING GRANDMOTHER, LYNN OLDEN.

That insistence on independence extended even to paying rent Olden didn't want to accept.

Olden explained that Swols had been paying $300 a month to Riach to stay in the apartment at 17-B Alden Ave. and insisted on paying Olden the same amount for the basement room at 25 Booth Road, even though Olden suggested she keep the money for her own apartment.

Olden said Swols "had it rough growing up." After Swols' mother was divorced from Olden's son, she lost their house and the mother and daughter lived in a car for a time, Olden said.

She also said Swols started using drugs at a young age.

But she is convinced that Swols had been clean in recent years, finally even stopping marijuana smoking, which Swols said she couldn't afford.

"Harlee's always been different," Olden said. She said she has another granddaughter the same age but added, "They could never have a relationship because Harlee couldn't have a relationship."

"I don't want anyone to think Harlee is a bad person," Olden said. "She's not. She's family. We'll always be there for her."

Police have charged Swols only with violating a family violence protective order in Sunday's stabbing incident but have said they expect to file "further charges" later.

'Horrible what she did'

"It was horrible what she did," Olden said of her granddaughter.

"My heart goes out to the other two families," she said at another point.

"She deserves what she gets," Olden said of Swols. "But I hope they take into consideration her past."

"I think she should have gotten help a long time ago," Olden said. "It's just sad this is the only way she's going to get help."

In a report on Sunday's incident, which police had described as a double homicide, local police Officer Brett Whitcomb said Swols showed no emotion when he first contacted her at the stabbing scene.

That rang true to Olden.

"She shows no emotion," Olden said. "When she was standing there, and I was talking to her, she was just empty."

But the police report on the July 7 incident describes a sudden, intense outburst.

Scab on toothbrush?

The report, by Officer Joshua Pinsker, quotes "Victim #1," Bell, as saying Swols came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, holding her toothbrush, and accused Bell of putting a scab on it.

The officer went on to describe the following:

Bell said he didn't see scabs on the toothbrush and denied having put them there. Suddenly, he said, Swols attacked him, punching him several times and forcing him to defend himself in a struggle that lasted several minutes.

Bell said he broke free and went into his bedroom, but Swols pushed the door open, threw a cup of coffee at him, and attacked him again, pushing her finger into his eye and scratching his face and arms with her fingernails.

Swols told the officer that Bell had punched her first. She acknowledged that the punch didn't cause her pain but said she was afraid Bell would continue to assault her and said she "had to do what I had to do."

The officer, however, quoted statements by Riach corroborating her boyfriend's claim that her granddaughter was the aggressor at all stages of the fight. Riach, 72, said she eventually managed to pull the much younger Swols off her 63-year-old boyfriend and that they stayed separated after that.

Police charged Swols with third-degree assault on an elderly person and second-degree breach of peace in the incident.

Bell wasn't charged. Pinsker reported that he was given an Office of Victim Services card and that a "short term safety plan" was discussed with him, including keeping doors locked and a phone nearby. In court the next day, a judge issued the protective order requiring Swols to stay away from Bell.

Swols is currently being held in lieu of a $1 million bond at the York Correctional Institution in East Lyme and is due back in Hartford Superior Court on Aug. 26.

For updates on Glastonbury, and recent crime and courts coverage in North-Central Connecticut, follow Alex Wood on Twitter: @AlexWoodJI1, Facebook: Alex Wood, and Instagram: @AlexWoodJI.