TV9 Special : Cognizant Employee Pawan Kumar’s ‘Murder Mystery’ – Full….,
WILMINGTON — Hours before she turned up dead in a Dewey Beach motel room, Danielle Mehlman was at a nightspot in town with Pawan Kumar — the man authorities believe later killed her — doing gummi bear shots with a Wilmington couple and showing off jewelry given to her by Kumar.
Dan Caputo and his fiancée, Cheri Duvall, said they did not sense any issue or tension between Mehlman and Kumar, although they were a bit puzzled at the exact nature of the couple’s relationship.
Caputo said at one point, they referred to Kumar as Mehlman’s “boyfriend” and she quickly corrected them to indicate he was not.
“She didn’t consider the relationship dating,” Caputo said. “She said, ‘he likes to buy me things,’ and showed us this jewelry, a gold necklace and two bracelets. She said right in front of him, ‘I’m not having sex with him, I’ve got a boyfriend.’ ” Caputo said that it didn’t seem as if Mehlman was being mean, that she was matter-of-fact about it.
Hours after having drinks with Caputo and Duvall at Jimmy’s Grill, Mehlman’s body was discovered in a room at the Atlantic Oceanside Motel, the first homicide victim in Dewey since the resort incorporated 31 years ago.
Kumar’s body was discovered about 24 hours later at a motel in New Jersey, an apparent suicide.
Interviews with Caputo and Duvall, and with the cabbie who drove Kumar from Dewey to Wilmington, provide a picture of events in the hours before and after Mehlman’s death.
Caputo said due to the fact it was late on a Sunday, they were just about the only people in Jimmy’s Grill besides the bartender, which is apparently why Mehlman struck up a conversation with them at the bar. “She was a bit more tipsy than him,” Caputo said, but Duvall said she did not appear to be drunk.
From the conversation, Caputo said he understood that Mehlman and Kumar had only known each other a short time, perhaps a week.
“I never got a clear explanation as to how they met,” he said, or why she was down at the beach with a man she did not consider to be her boyfriend.
“I think he thought there was more going on in the relationship than she did,” Caputo said, adding that he had difficulty understanding what Kumar said due to his accent.
Kumar, a citizen of India, was in the United States on an H1 B work visa, said Harold Ort, in a statement from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Newark, N.J. The News Journal was unable to determine where he worked or how long he’d been in the country.
Mehlman, who was from Bensalem, Pa., told Duvall that she was a schoolteacher, and media reports said she was a teacher at Planet Abacus Charter School in Philadelphia. Site Director Claudia Lyles said Mehlman had previously worked at the school but did not work there this school year.
“She was not here during my time here,” Lyles said. “I’ve been here since the end of November.”
Mehlman worked occasionally at the The Oasis, a gentleman’s club on Essington Avenue just outside of Philadelphia, according to a manager and dancer there.
The manager, who identified himself to a reporter but asked that his name not be used, said Mehlman hadn’t worked there long, but once every few weeks would work the 9 p.m.-2 a.m. shift.
The manager said she “was a very sweet girl. She really hated to (work at Oasis). She was very beautiful, and we hate to lose her. She didn’t cause any problems.”
A Delaware State Police detective visited the club as part of the investigation into Mehlman’s killing, the manager said.
At Jimmy’s Grill, Duvall said she chatted with Mehlman about where to go and what to eat in Dewey Beach.
“She was really friendly and told me she was a schoolteacher. We ‘friended’ each other (on Facebook),” she said, adding Mehlman took a picture of them with her cellphone and promised to send it to them over Facebook.
“While we were sitting there, she showed me a couple of texts from a guy she said she really did like,” Duvall recalled, saying the text was “something about ‘Where are you, I want to see you.’ “
But, Duvall said, Mehlman reiterated in regard to Kumar, “I’m not going to have sex with this guy because I don’t love him,” but she added that Kumar was next going to take her to buy a Coach purse.
“I guess close to 9 p.m., they said they were going to the Starboard and they wanted us to go,” Duvall said. She and Caputo begged off. “We left and went home (to a beach house) and that was the end of it,” he said.
“Nothing seemed out of the ordinary,” Duvall said, adding she now regrets not going with them to the Starboard. “I have this strange feeling that maybe we should have gone.”
About 10 hours later, just after 7 a.m., Beach Ride Taxi in Lewes got a call from someone who wanted a ride to the Wilmington train station. When dispatch asked him for his name, the man said, “you have my number, that is enough,” according to 56-year-old Jim Allen, owner of Beach Ride.