The Norwich, Conn., police have not charged anyone with the murder of Eugene Mallove, a Pembroke scientist who promoted the theory of cold fusion. Mallove was beaten to death Friday evening in what Norwich police Lt. Timothy Menard described as a robbery gone bad.

"We're actively pursing some leads, and we have talked to a couple of suspects," Menard said.

Mallove was found on the back lawn, near the driveway, of his childhood home at 119 Salem Turnpike. His daughter said that he had gone to Norwich to clean the home before it was rented out.

A family friend who was sent there to check on him found the body just before 11 p.m. Friday, Menard said. Mallove had been hit repeatedly with some type of weapon. An autopsy found that he died from injuries to his head and neck. Investigators do not know how long he had been dead, although tests that will be completed later this week could reveal more, Menard said.

The house lies on Norwich's main thoroughfare, a four-lane road called the Golden Mile. It is filled with fast-food restaurants, shopping centers and strip malls. The house is set near the road, along a portion that is still partially residential. Many of the neighboring houses have been converted into businesses or torn down for new development, said Bill Sweeney, Norwich's city planner. The area is near the entrance ramp to Interstate 395.

The city of 36,000 averages four murders a year. Many people who live there work at casinos in nearby communities, Menard said.

Investigators have developed several scenarios of what may have happened to Mallove, Menard said. He could have interrupted a burglary, someone could have followed him home from a restaurant or someone driving by could have decided to take advantage of him. "It could be anything," Menard said. "We have not eliminated any possibilities."

Several small items were taken from Mallove, and his minivan, a green 1993 Dodge Caravan, was found five miles away in a parking lot for employees of Foxwoods Casino. A student security guard found the van, which has the license plant INFNRG, standing for "infinite energy,"after the police put out a bulletin describing it.

Evidence collected from the van will be subjected to fingerprint and DNA analysis, which Menard hopes will lead investigators to the killer. The DNA evidence will take a month or longer to process. Fingerprints can be evaluated more easily, but they could just be Mallove's, Menard said.

Over the weekend, some in the scientific community speculated that Mallove's work on cold fusion, essentially the idea that energy can be created by fusing atoms in water at room temperature, could have made him a target. While that theory has not been ruled out, the police are not pursing it, Menard said. Witness statements and evidence collected from the van make it unlikely, Menard said.