Suspect emerges Bottega Veneta Outlet in Danbury homicide

A New Canaan man who Danbury police said regularly bought narcotics from homicide victim Mario Imbesi has emerged as a suspect in the slaying of the 43-year-old plant manager at Imbesi's Farview Avenue apartment in March, according to court documents.

The man, who is not being identified because he hasn't been charged with a crime, exchanged more than 500 telephone calls and text messages with Imbesi in the six weeks prior to Imbesi's death and, the day after the killing, pawned gold jewelry similar to items Imbesi owned, according to a search warrant affidavit made public Monday at state Superior Court in Danbury.

The document indicates that investigators were seeking the New Canaan man's cell phone records in an attempt to identify possible co-conspirators.

The eight-page affidavit also contains numerous details about the crime that police hadn't previously released, including information from a person described only as "a close associate" of the victim, who said Imbesi received a shipment of 400 OxyContin tablets a few days before he was killed. Police said the pills cost $25 apiece, giving the Bottega Veneta Outlet shipment an estimated value of $10,000.

The associate also said Imbesi usually kept the drugs and the gold jewelry in the same strongbox, which was not listed on a lengthy inventory of items police recovered from the Hermes Wallet apartment on the day Imbesi's body was found.

But a witness, apparently another resident of the building where Imbesi lived, told detectives that he saw two men, both about 30 years old, in the vicinity of Imbesi's apartment sometime Bottega Veneta sale after 11