Richard Crafts was arrested in 1986 and charged with the murder of his wife, Helle. Prosecutors said he used a wood chipper to dispose of her body. It was the first time in state history that a murder was tried without a body. (Associated Press Pool Photo)

Notorious murderer Richard Crafts, who used a chain saw to cut up his wife’s body and a wood chipper to dispose of it, is out of prison and living in a halfway house, a state Department of Correction spokeswoman said Friday.

The 82-year-old is at a transitional housing program for veterans in Bridgeport, Karen Martucci said.

Crafts has been behind bars since his arrest in 1987, Martucci said. He was sentenced to 50 years in prison on Jan. 8, 1990.

He served a dramatically shorter sentence for different reasons, mostly because of an old sentencing law known as “statutory good time.” The law — which has since been changed — allowed for large amounts of time to be taken off prisoners’ sentences as a reward for good behavior and jailhouse jobs, she said. Correction officials have to apply the law that was in place at the time of sentencing.

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Had Crafts been sentenced after the new, less generous sentencing law was put in place, he would not have been eligible for any time off his sentence, Martucci said.

Crafts also got credit for the three years he was locked up between his arrest and sentencing. He was convicted after his second trial; his first ended in a mistrial. It was the first murder conviction in the state without a body.

In 1987 and 1998 he got disciplinary infractions for having contraband in his jail cell, which Martucci said didn’t affect his “good time.” At least one of those times he was restricted to his cell for 15 days. She said she didn’t know what the items were, but they were not illegal drugs and the offense was only considered a “medium” level offense.

In addition, Crafts was let out of prison seven months early so he may transfer to a supervised program instead of being released to the streets after 32 years behind bars. Crafts, who has been classified as a low risk to the community, was released from the Willard-Cybulski Correctional Institution, the least secure prison, to the custody of the Bridgeport program on Nov. 1, Martucci said. She said he began serving his time in maximum-security prisons.

He is due to finish his sentence in June, she said.

“Based on his sentence and without this period of supervision, Craft would not have had any assistance transitioning back to the community,” she said. “For us, it’s our job to prepare even someone of extreme violence, because they’re going to go home.”

According to Courant archives, prosecutors said Richard Crafts bought a large freezer on Nov. 17, 1986. The next day, Nov. 18, was the last time anyone saw Helle Crafts.

On the morning of Nov. 19, Richard Crafts drove their children from their home in Newtown to his sister's house in Westport. On Nov. 20 he rented a wood chipper and a truck, which he used to haul the wood chipper.

The state said Crafts killed his wife, froze her body, cut it up with a chain saw and used a wood chipper in several areas of Newtown and Southbury to do away with the body. He then disposed of the freezer to prevent authorities from finding any evidence.

On Nov. 20, several witnesses saw the truck and the wood chipper in different locations in Newtown and Southbury, including on a steel bridge in Newtown between 3 and 4 a.m. Crafts told someone he was clearing limbs downed in a Nov. 18 storm. However, no tree limbs fell on his property during the storm.

State police later searched the area near the steel bridge and found among the piles of wood chips an envelope bearing the victim’s name, pieces of bone and tissue, a human fingernail and crowns to the victim’s teeth, prosecutors said.

Police also recovered, underwater near the steel bridge, Crafts’ chain saw and a saw blade. They contained blood, tissue and hair fragments matching those of the victim.

Crafts told state police in December 1986 that he had last seen his wife Nov. 19, and that she was visiting a friend in the Canary Islands.

At one point, when state police divers began looking for his wife, Crafts told his brother-in-law: “Let them dive. There’s no body. It’s gone.”

Notoriety aside, the prison system has no choice when it comes to releasing prisoners like Crafts.

“High notoriety case, extremely violent. All of those pieces of this makes it interesting," Martucci said. But “all of this comes down to: He served his time in prison.”

Christine Dempsey can be reached at cdempsey@courant.com.