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Where Is Rick Dabate Now? 'Dateline' Investigates "Fitbit Murder"

When Connie Dabate was found lifeless in her Connecticut home, her husband Rick wove a unusual story. Where is Rick Dabate now?

Jennifer Tisdale - Author

It was once meant to be a joyous time of 12 months for 39-year-old Connie Dabate, who beloved Christmas. Along together with her husband, Rick, and their two youngsters, she eagerly awaited the time when they might open items and spend the vacation together.

Unfortunately, that never came to fruition. Dabate was brutally murdered at the morning of Dec. 23, 2015, at her house in Ellington, Conn.

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The children have been unhurt, however 40-year-old Rick Dabate was once found stabbed and tied to a folding chair. Both were discovered through police when a silent alarm was once tripped in the house.

Rick Dabate lived and would pass on to weave an out of this world tale for government. Who killed Connie Dabate and where is Rick Dabate now? Read on for the details surrounding the true-crime story.

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Where is Rick Dabate now?

Rick Dabate is lately serving a 65-year jail sentence at Connecticut's MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution for the murder of Connie Dabate. According to the Journal Inquirer, after a five-week trial, it most effective took the jury a couple of hours to hand down a in charge verdict.

The trial began in April 2022 and ended the next month. The resolution was once reached after a "six-year search for justice in the case." Connie Dabate's friends and family erupted in applause when state prosecutor Matthew Gedansky entered the court.

On the stairs of the courthouse, Connie Dabate's brother Keith Margotta informed the press, "It’s a weight lifted off my shoulders. But it’s bittersweet. Everything kind of hits home. Everything that we went through and tried to put behind us six years ago is right in front of us right now."

Two months later, the pass judgement on made his choice to ship Rick Dabate to prison for Sixty five years.

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At the sentencing, a large number of people read sufferer impact statements to the pass judgement on as well as to Rick Dabate. "Connie was not lost, she was stolen," shared her sister Marliese Shaw. "He betrayed my sister. He betrayed my family. He is a killer and a thief."

Leslie Garabedian, Connie's different sister, revealed that the Christmas present she got her in 2015 stays wrapped. "Time has not changed anything," Garabedian told the court docket.

However, Rick Dabate maintains his innocence.

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How did a Fitbit help deliver Rick Dabate to justice?

People Magazine reported that police felt one thing was once off about Rick Dabate's model of occasions from the night time he used to be assaulted and Connie Dabate used to be murdered. Rick claimed that he had "struggled with a masked, camouflage-clad intruder who subdued him by zip-tying him to a chair and stabbing him with a box cutter." According to Rick, said intruder then pursued Connie Dabate to the basement where he shot her with a .357 magnum.

But this is where issues begin to fall apart within the story.

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Using canine devices to trace the smell of the killer, the dogs could not find anything else. However, they did monitor Rick Dabate to the ambulance where he used to be being treated for his accidents. For more than 16 months, police investigated Rick Dabate and in the long run arrested him on April 14, 2017. Per People, he used to be charged with "felony counts of murder, evidence tampering, and giving false statements to cops."

Two issues ultimately tipped the scales for government and had been integrated in the 50-page affidavit they submitted to secure the arrest. The first used to be the truth that Rick Dabate was once cheating on Connie Dabate with a woman who was once pregnant together with his kid. Days prior to Connie Dabate's murder, Rick Dabate was promising (by the use of texts to his girlfriend) that he was going to divorce Connie. The 2d red flag got here in the form of Connie Dabate's Fitbit.

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Lesser known ongoing case from CT. LE says Fitbit information suggests that Connie used to be alive after Rick Debate stated she was murdered through individual committing home invasion.https://t.co/ls9WiKHiKG

— Doubt Became Our Narrative (@Doubt_B_O_Nar) January 23, 2020

The main points surrounding the attack had been equipped by way of Rick Dabate, who didn't consider that Connie's Fitbit would contradict what he informed police.

Per Law & Crime, "prosecutors showed that the deceased woman’s Fitbit data showed she was alive and moving well after her husband claimed she was dead." This was sufficient to persuade a jury that Rick Dabate was once liable for the loss of life of Connie Dabate.

For more in this tale, track into Dateline on Friday, Jan. 6 at Nine p.m. EST on NBC.

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