Police make progress investigating woman’s fatal shooting

Emily Todd, 2011 Bethel High School yearbook photo. Emily Todd, 2011 Bethel High School yearbook photo. Photo: Contributed Photo / Contributed Photo Photo: Contributed Photo / Contributed Photo Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close Police make progress investigating woman’s fatal shooting 1 / 8 Back to Gallery

BRIDGEPORT — Police said Thursday that they are continuing to actively investigate last weekend’s fatal shooting of a young Bethel woman here.

“We are making progress,” said Police Capt. Brian Fitzgerald. He declined to comment further on the case.

Emily Todd, 25, a therapist at a Danbury senior center, was found dead early Sunday in Bridgeport on a small beach area adjacent to the city’s boat ramp on Seaview Avenue.

Police said she was shot once in the back of the head at that location.

Prior to her death, police said, Todd had been in the company of a man she had recently met. Police confirmed that this man, who they would not identify, was a suspect in her death.

During their investigation, detectives searched areas in Bridgeport and Stratford seeking evidence in the case. Although they have not disclosed a possible motive for the woman’s killing, they did say it had nothing to do with drugs.

Todd, a 20111 graduate of Bethel High School, was reported missing by her family on Sunday after she failed to show up at work.

Funeral services for Todd were set for Saturday at 11 a.m. at Bethel United Methodist Church. Calling hours are on Friday from 4 to 7 p.m. at Bethel Funeral Home.

Todd was a 2016 graduate of Lesley University, in Cambridge, Mass, where expressive therapies instructor Nancy Jo Cardillo remembered her as “sensitive, vulnerable and wide open.”

“In class, she always spoke from her heart,” Cardillo said in a release from the university.

She recalled that Todd had a younger brother whom she missed dearly while she was at Lesley.

“In fact, she would go home to be with him for his birthday and other events,” Cardillo said. “She was playful, emotionally expressive, loved children, connected to her peers from a compassionate place, and loved to dance.

“This week we learned the upsetting and tragic news that a member of the Lesley family was the victim of a fatal shooting,” said interim university President Richard Hansen. “Our condolences are with her loved ones and others on whom Emily had an impact, and we are making counseling services available to Lesley students, faculty and staff.”