Police look for answers after deadly domestic incident in Fairfield

Kathleen and Christopher Andrews from their Facebook page. Kathleen and Christopher Andrews from their Facebook page. Photo: Facebook, Contributed Photo Photo: Facebook, Contributed Photo Image 1 of / 98 Caption Close Police look for answers after deadly domestic incident in Fairfield 1 / 98 Back to Gallery

FAIRFIELD — Christopher Andrews was not known for violence.

He would share friendly waves with parents when he dropped his kids off at parties. He would cheer on his son at basketball games and mingle with neighbors.

By all accounts, Andrews was a well-liked attorney, coach, neighbor and patriarch of an outgoing, friendly family.

Those who knew him struggled to reconcile that image with the events of Tuesday morning, when a Fairfield police officer shot Andrews dead in the climax of what police are calling a "violent domestic assault." His wife and their three children then were scattered, with various blunt-force injuries and stab wounds, among three area hospitals.

"They were really good friends with a whole group of other neighbors; they spent a lot of time together. It was just a really nice family, really nice guy and it's all very confusing," said Shari Nerreau, as she fought back tears before entering a rosary service for the Andrewses at St. Pius X Catholic Church on Tuesday evening.

"We tried to process it and make sense of it ... I'm sure that information will come out, and I think right now we're just praying for the family, whose members are still, you know, they're still not in great shape," she said.

The news of Andrews' death had rippled outward from Springer Glen, up and down Mill River and to Manhattan, where Andrews kept a law practice.

"My husband woke up to the gunshots," said Nerreau, who lives near the Andrewses' home.

Within minutes of those predawn gunshots, she and her neighbors traded information and talked to police, and learned there had been some sort of family dispute at the rented home on Mountain Laurel Avenue.

The neighborhood is waiting for answers. Town police are looking into the family dispute. Connecticut State Police are investigating the shooting, at the request of state prosecutors.

Sorting out what happened

Fairfield police officials did not say for certain Tuesday whether Christopher Andrews attacked his family, whether another family member launched the assault, or whether somebody else entirely was responsible for the beatings and stabbings.

What they did say was that the assault put Andrews' wife, Kathleen Andrews in Bridgeport Hospital, one of his children in Yale-New Haven Hospital in New Haven and the other two in St. Vincent's Medical Center in Bridgeport.

When officers responded to the early morning report of domestic violence, they found Andrews was holding a knife, police said. Andrews refused to drop the blade, and an officer shot him, police said.

That officer, who police described as a veteran of the Fairfield force, was also sent to a hospital for observation.

Andrews' wife suffered stab wounds to the face and also showed signs of blunt-force trauma, police said. The couple's youngest son — a 12-year-old who had blunt-force wounds to the head and face — was air-lifted to Yale-New Haven Hospital, and the two other children, ages 15 and 13, were hospitalized at St. Vincent's.

Sam Greenberg, who knows the younger Andrews children, said he learned of the shooting watching News 12, and was surprised at the report.

Nicholas Crescione, who plays basketball alongside the eldest Andrews child at Fairfield Warde High School, said he also learned of the shooting from watching the news on television.

"It's crazy," he said.

That eldest child had apparently wrested a bat from his father. Police said the bat had been the weapon used in the assault. However, during the early stages of the investigation, police said it was not clear who had inflicted the bulk of the injuries.

News of the incident continued to cascade through town into the later morning, as parents dropped their children off at school.

"The group texts started at 7:30 in the morning with the 'Are you OK,' and they just didn't stop," said Susan Mudd, who also said a rosary for the Andrews family Tuesday night.

Later in the morning, Mudd said, her daughter sent her a link to a news article.

"I was like, oh my God, this doesn't happen in Fairfield, then we realized that we know the family," Mudd said. "I'm still shocked. It's a nice family."

No local history of trouble

Police said there were no records of any problems at the home previously. State court records show no convictions or pending charges against Christopher Andrews, on whom the state's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner will conduct an autopsy.

Fairfield police officials said they will conduct their own internal probe of the officer's role in the shooting.

Superintendent of Schools David Title said that mental-health resources were available Tuesday to students and staff at the schools attended by children in the family.

The home where the incident took place is owned by Harun and Jacinta Keskinkaya, according to the town's online land-records database. A member of the Keskinkaya family said the house was rented to tenants.

Harun Keskinkaya is the CEO of DJH Leather Corp. of New York City, and owns Delfino Imports. A woman identifying herself as the Keskinkayas' daughter answered the phone at Delfino, in New York, and said her family does not live in the Mountain Laurel home, and for many years rented the house to the Andrews family.

The woman said she did not know the renters' names, but had met them in passing and was shocked to hear about the assault.

"From my parents, I only heard good things about the family," she said. "They were always so kind to us."

Staff writers Amanda Cuda, John Burgeson and Frank Juliano contributed to this report.