Crime Beat

Boulevard house.
    Along the way, Malinosky somehow picked up one alias—Barry Vandiver Bryant—that actually was the name of a real person, Blais said. The real Barry Bryant, of Charlotte, N.C., has since changed his name because of credit problems that began when Malinosky took his identity.
    In 1979, Malinosky was, on the surface, an unlikely murder suspect. He had taught for several years in Burlington area schools and was known to many in the northern Vermont community. At 34, he was assistant director of special education for the Burlington School Department.
    Bearded and slightly balding, he was a man who enjoyed the outdoors. He had an apartment in Burlington and owned a house in the rural town of Shelburne, which was more convenient for hunting and skiing. A mellow-voiced widower, his wife having shot herself to death in 1976, Malinosky was raising a daughter and son.
    But in mid-1979 Malinosky’s life apparently went into a tailspin when Leo-Coneys broke off a two-year relationship with him. According to Chittenden County court records, he was deeply hurt by the breakup, had sought psychiatric counseling and had been seen at least once spying through the windows of Leo-Coneys’ apartment.
    Two weeks before her disappearance, Leo-Coneys was held at gunpoint by Malinosky for several hours while he unsuccessfully attempted to persuade her to resume their relationship, records say.
    On the morning of Nov. 5, 1979, Leo-Coneys told friends and relatives she was going to drop by Malinosky’s home in Shelburne to retrieve something of hers. She chose that morning to go because she knew he was scheduled to be at work in Burlington.
    But Leo-Coneys was never seen again. She was reported missing by her family later that day and investigators learned that Malinosky had not gone to work or even called his office to explain why. That night, when he was spotted driving his van in Shelburne and questioned by police, he said he took the day off to go bird hunting and did not see Leo-Coneys.
    Leo-Coneys’ car was found at a junkyard in the town of Roxbury the next day. A handwritten note on the windshield said the car could be stripped for parts and was signed “R. Peterson.”
    Malinosky was questioned repeatedly after the disappearance. But on Dec. 2, 1979, he put his children on a bus to his former in-laws’ home, emptied his bank accounts and disappeared. Though Leo-Coneys’ body has never been found, authorities claim they have amassed convincing evidence pointing to Malinosky.
    According to court records, FBI experts matched Malinosky’s handwriting to the note found on Leo-Coneys’ car at the Roxbury junkyard. Investigators also found a cab driver who reported picking Malinosky up in Roxbury on the day of the woman’s disappearance. A cab dispatcher who took the call remembered talking to Malinosky. She had once been one of his students.
    Detectives had also noticed while interviewing Malinosky the first time that his parka was torn and leaking its down filling. The same type of down was found in Leo-Coneys’ car, court records say.
    Police believed after Malinosky’s disappearance that he might have killed himself, and the case languished without any charges being filed.
    In 1986, the Leo-Coneys case was assigned to Blais to be updated and, using a computer search, the detective learned Malinosky was alive and had apparently lived in Salt Lake City in the mid-1980s, where he used his own name to get a driver’s license.
    Blais went to Utah but Malinosky was gone.
    Once again, the case languished, until last year when a new state attorney, William Sorrell, was appointed and made the Leo-Coneys investigation a priority. The case was presented Feb. 20, 1990, to a grand jury, which concluded that Leo-Coneys was dead, and a warrant was issued two days later charging Malinosky with her slaying.
    According to court records, Malinosky’s daughter told investigators she had met her father earlier this year at the St. Moritz Hotel in New York City. Blais learned that the hotel room Malinosky used was paid for by a credit card issued to a Barry Vandiver Bryant. From that point, credit card billings under that name were traced to four private mailboxes in the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood.
    Members of the Los Angeles Police Department fugitive squad questioned the private mailbox proprietors, who identified Barry Bryant as Malinosky. And on April 12, the detectives were alerted by one of the mail-drop