An inmate has been indicted on a first degree murder charge stemming from a “resident on resident” fight last February that resulted in the death of a fellow inmate at the Northern New Hampshire Correctional Facility in Berlin.

A Coos County grand jury has indicted Robert Lavoie, 57, for striking James Dale, 65, with a metal pipe on Feb. 13. Dale was taken to Androscoggin Valley Hospital and then transferred to a trauma center but passed away the next day. New Hampshire Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Jennie V. Duval ruled the death a homicide, saying the autopsy determined Dale’s death was the result of head and neck injuries.

Both Lavoie and Dale were serving life sentences at the prison. Dale was convicted in 1997 of second-degree murder for raping and killing a 6-year-old girl in Hopkinton and sentenced to serve 60 to 120 years in prison. Dale had insisted he was innocent of the charge and was actively fighting his conviction.

Dale was also convicted in 2000 of attempted first degree murder for slashing the throat of an inmate at a prison in Pennsylvania using a razor blade attached to a tooth brush. Dale was sentenced to 20 to 40 years in prison for charges stemming from the attack. At the time, he was being housed in a Pennsylvania prison under an interstate compact.

Court records show that Lavoie is serving a sentence for first degree murder after a jury found him guilty of the charge back in 1992. His sentence runs through 2091 but details of the incident were not available. He is currently being held at the New Hampshire State Prison for Men in Concord according to New Hampshire Corrections records.

New Hampshire Corrections requested investigative assistance from New Hampshire State Police and the investigation was turned over to the New Hampshire Attorney General’s office. Lavoie’s indictment was announced jointly by Attorney-General John Formella, State Police Col. Mark Hall, and Department of Corrections Commissioner Helen Hanks.

Lavoie is scheduled to be arraigned on January 3, 2024, at 10:45 a.m. in the Coos County Superior Court in Lancaster.

The Northern New HampshireCorrectional Facility is a medium-security prison that currently houses just over 700 inmates.

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