Richard E. Tourtellotte, Sr. (June 15, 1916 - December 30, 1957) was an Army veteran of World War II and a teacher in Hartford and Unionville, Connecticut. He was a communicant of St. Mary's Church in Unionville.
He was born on June 15, 1916 in Providence, Rhode Island, to George A. Tourtellotte and Mary Hurley. He married Dorothy Lorentzen, the sister of West Hartford Board of Education secretary Gertrude M. Lorentzen. After a divorce in 1948, he received a marriage license on May 15, 1951 with Beulah L. Shelton, a machine operator living with him at 107 Spruce Street.
Tourtellotte had several issues with the law over prescription medication. In March 1954, he was arrested for falsely obtaining drugs and paregoric, an opiate. The following month, he was committed to Norwich State Hospital. However, the problems continued. On November 6, 1955, he was arrested on narcotics charges with two other men. He used two men - Edwin F. Cole and John L. Johnson - as pick-up men to purchase opium for him at local drug stores. When either of the two men was to buy the drug for Tourtellotte, they would receive money and keep the change as pay for running the errand. Members of police made the arrests after following Johnson from a rendezvous with Tourtellotte on Union Place to the Netherlands Pharmacy at 20 Farmington Avenue. In the drugstore, Johnson purchased a two-ounce bottle of paregoric, a form of opium. He signed his own name but gave a fictitious address when registering the purchase with the druggist. Police took the two men back to Tourtellotte's apartment at 107 Spruce Street, where they found another bottle of paregoric, the opiate. The other man, Cole, admitted he had run similar errands for Tourtellotte on other occasions.
Soon after, he moved to Frederick, Maryland. On December 30, 1957, he died suddenly at his home, leaving his wife and two children, as well as two aunts.