Enfield Man Charged With 2 Counts of Manslaughter in Fatal Crash in February

An Enfield man has been charged with two counts of manslaughter in connection with a horrific crash in February that claimed the lives of two people.

Kyle Berry, 46, of 52 Bailey Road, is charged with reckless driving as well as the two manslaughter charges. He was arraigned Friday in Enfield Superior Court, and is scheduled to return there Nov. 1.

Bond on the new charges was set at $100,000. Berry has been held at the Hartford Correctional Center in lieu of $1 million bond since his arrest in February for evading responsibility.

Berry is charged in connection with an early-morning crash on Feb. 14 that took the lives of East Windsor residents Michael "Mickey" Kennedy, 57, and Colleen Caruso, 34.

According to an affidavit supporting Berry's arrest, he left Mickey Finns Cafe in Somersville around 1 a.m. in a blue Chevrolet pickup truck, which "kicked up a lot of dirt causing a dust cloud and traveled west bound on Route 190."

Witnesses said Berry was closely following a small red Nissan four-door sedan operated by Glenn McIntyre, 32, of East Windsor. McIntyre's car contained three passengers, including Kennedy and Caruso, the affidavit says.

A witness driving south on Broad Brook Road told police "noticed headlights in his rear view mirror" near the First Baptist Church, then "two vehicles passed him on the left at approximately 80 miles per hour...[t]he pickup truck appeared to be chasing the red car and was approximately one car length behind the red car," the affidavit says.

"As [the witness] passed Town Farm Road, he observed the pickup truck hit the rear of the red car," the affidavit continued. "[The witness] stopped and approached the scene of the collision on foot, where a man was standing near the red car yelling. The pickup truck drove past him, north bound on Broad Brook Road at a high rate of speed."

A police reconstruction of the accident scene indicated the pickup truck operated by Berry was determined to be traveling a minimum speed of 72.53 mph, while the Nissan was traveling a minimum of 66.45 mph. "The pickup truck struck the rear of the sedan causing the sedan to lose control, strike an embankment, strike a tree, and roll over before coming to a rest in the north bound travel lane of Broad Brook Road," the affidavit says.

The investigation showed Berry's truck "did collide with McIntyre's vehicle while operating at a high rate of speed as McIntyre slowed at an entrance to a curve on Broad Brook Road causing the deaths of two person and an injury to a third person," the affidavit says.

In applying for the manslaughter charges, Det. James Held wrote in the affidavit that in his expert and qualified opinion, "Kyle Berry did show an extreme indifference to human life by operating his motor vehicle in a manner which caused the death of two persons."