From:
http://www.theday.com/eng/web/news/r...C-C51570299ECC


Still Searching For Answers
A Year Later, Family of Murder Victim not Giving Up Hope


Published on 5/19/2005

Norwich- A year after Eugene Mallove's slaying here in the driveway
of the home where he grew up, members of his family continue to grieve,
frustrated at not knowing the circumstances of his death.

"We want to know what happened," Joanne Mallove said last week.
"I find it hard to believe someone would want to hurt my husband. He
was a kind and generous man. I want to know why they did it. I want to
know what happened that night."

The Malloves' son calls the case a constant preoccupation, a background
noise that never goes away.

"I don't see anything change," Ethan Mallove said. "We're not
going from an open case to a suspect, to a trial. I'm just waiting for
something to be new and different. When it's time to go to sleep and
everything is quiet, I can't get it out of my head. It's just a
terrible loose end in my life, in all of our lives."

At 10:50 p.m. Friday, May 15, 2004, Norwich police responded to a call
for an injured person at 119 Salem Turnpike. Minutes later, they found
Eugene Mallove, a 56-year old Norwich native, beaten to death, struck
about the head and neck with items police have yet to publicly
identify.

Mallove, a physicist who lived in Pembroke, N.H., had returned to
Norwich for the weekend.

Once the chief science writer for the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, he had left that position to dedicate his life to searching
out the means by which cold fusion could become an energy source. He
authored three books on the subject, including a finalist for the
Pulitzer Prize, "Fire and Ice: Searching for the Truth Behind the
Cold Fusion Furor." MIT will host a colloquium in his honor this
weekend.

In March 2004, the U.S. Department of Energy announced that it was
going to review cold fusion and its potential ability to provide
energy. Mallove could have been homing in on his dream theory by the
end of last year, but it wasn't to be.

Police found Mallove's green minivan in the early-morning hours of May
16, 2004. It was easily identified, even in the employee parking lot at
Foxwoods Resort Casino, where it had been stashed. It had
www.infiniteenergy.com, the name of the magazine Mallove had founded,
printed on the back window. Police processed it for evidence.

Norwich Lt. Timothy Menard said last week that most of the evidence in
the case had been processed through the state's forensic laboratories
and that the results were returned, but he declined to identify the
items or disclose the lab's findings.

"We've interviewed more than 150 people," Menard said. "We are
still actively working the case."

As recently as January, police renewed a public plea for items missing
from Mallove's person or the van. Police have still not recovered
Mallove's wallet, which contained identification and credit cards; a
Sanyo 4900 cellular telephone, which was in a heavy-duty carrying case;
a Sony digital camera, model No. DSC P9, which reads "Cyber Shot"
and "4.0 mega pixels" on the front; the camera's case, which reads
"Sony Cybershot" on the front; and Mallove's gold wedding band,
which had a unique inscription.

···

Ethan Mallove, a 26-year-old computer programmer who lives with his
wife, Cheryl, and their 6-month-old son, Julian Gene, in Winchester,
Mass., has monitored the investigation. Joanna Mallove, 59, who teaches
piano to children and adults at Manchester Community Music School in
New Hampshire, and her daughter, Kim Woodard, a 31-year-old third-grade
teacher living in Seattle, have stayed close to each other.

"This case cries out for justice," Ethan Mallove said. "My dad
was a peaceful, loving guy. The extreme violence makes it all the more
agonizing. The more details I get, the more evil it all sounds."

He said his calls to police, which used to be weekly, have dwindled to
once every three weeks. Menard and the detectives working the case have
been polite, friendly and cooperative, Mallove said, but there simply
hasn't been much for them to report.

Family members agree, however, that something will break.

"I'll always hope they solve it," Joanne Mallove said.
"Periodically, I see stories of long-ago murders solved. I'll never
give up hope. I'm confident that someday the police will get a
break."

···

Woodard came home for a visit last summer. She returned for
Thanksgiving, which she said was a rarity in the eight years she's
lived in the Northwest, and again during the holidays at the end of the
year. Her mother flew to Seattle for the February and April school
vacations. As soon as Woodard's husband, Patrick, can find a job back
East, they plan to move back.

"The past year has been exceptionally hard, knowing what everybody is
going through," Woodard said. "There's no question we need to go
back. I can't stay here knowing the pain and loneliness my mother and
brother feel. It's hard when all you can do is call. You can't invite
them to dinner, or stay with them for a weekend. That makes it really
hard."

Woodard said her father was the family's leader. She called him the
rock, the joker, the heart of the family. Now, she said, the family
relies upon one another for strength.

"He was the strong one," she said. "Now we're all equal, counting
on each other."

Woodard said six months of counseling and sharing time, stories and
tears with a group of women who have suffered similar losses has helped
her to cope. But nothing, she said, has fortified her as has caring for
her 3-year-old son, Mathew. She said having to care for and nurture a
child helped her stave off depression.

"Despite the tragedy, in my son I see hope for the future," she
said. "Ethan's son was born not long after my father was killed. I
think that helps him and my mother the same way."

Joanne Mallove said she laughs when she is out with friends, and even
with the rest of the family. But she said she hardly ever laughs when
she is home. She still lives in the house where she and her husband
expected to spend their retirement.

Everywhere she looks now, she's reminded of her husband, she said.

She wants to move closer to Ethan, closer to her work. She wants
neighbors who are closer.

"I see the bed we shared and the kitchen table where we read the
papers," she said. "I can still visualize him walking in and out.
His vision permeates the environment. It's almost like a tomb.

"If someone had told me last year that I would be home alone for the
whole winter, I would have said that was impossible."