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Mother’s boyfriend gets 22-45 years in death of New Hampshire boy Elijah Lewis; ‘I wish I could take it back’

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Mother’s boyfriend gets 22-45 years in death of New Hampshire boy Elijah Lewis; ‘I wish I could take it back’


NASHUA, N.H. – A New Hampshire man has been sentenced to as much as 45 years in jail within the loss of life of 5-year-old Elijah Lewis.

Joseph Stapf pleaded responsible to a number of fees on Thursday, together with manslaughter. He’s dealing with a time period of 22-45 years behind bars.

“How can there be justice when this little life is snuffed out,” mentioned New Hampshire Superior Courtroom Choose Charles Temple, holding up a photograph of “Eli.”

Lewis was reported lacking by social staff and later discovered lifeless in Abington, Massachusetts, final October. An post-mortem confirmed he suffered facial and scalp accidents, acute fentanyl intoxication, malnourishment and strain ulcers. 

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Stapf was relationship Elijah’s mom, Danielle Dauphinais, who’s awaiting trial on a homicide cost.

Timothy Lewis, Elijah’s organic father, gave a sufferer influence assertion to the courtroom, talking by means of a monitor from his dwelling in Arizona.

“You possibly can have stepped as much as cease this at any level when you had been man sufficient,” he mentioned. “You possibly can have introduced him dwelling to us at any level.”

Stapf himself spoke in courtroom as effectively on Thursday, saying he “by no means needed any of this to occur to Elijah.” He supplied a tearful apology after an excruciating account of what the boy endured within the couple’s Merrimack, New Hampshire dwelling.

“I liked that boy. I did,” Stapf mentioned. “I am so sorry. I want I may take it again.”

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The courtroom was stuffed with police and case staff. 

“Somebody ought to have mentioned one thing. Somebody in that household ought to have mentioned one thing,” Merrimack Police Chief Brian Levesque mentioned. 

Additionally, within the entrance row, a bunch headed by considered one of Elijah’s kinfolk, holding indicators that mentioned #EliLewisStrong. 

“Be nosey,” MJ Morrison mentioned. “Be nosey along with your neighbor’s youngsters. It can save you a toddler’s life by doing one thing like that.”

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New Hampshire

New Hampshire charges 1st person in state with murder in the death of a fetus – The Boston Globe

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New Hampshire charges 1st person in state with murder in the death of a fetus – The Boston Globe


OSSIPEE, N.H. — A New Hampshire man appeared in court Monday on charges that he killed a pregnant woman and her unborn child by means of multiple blunt force injuries, the first time the state has charged someone with murder in the death of a fetus.

William Kelly, 28, appeared in Carroll County Superior Court in Ossipee with his lawyer, Caroline Smith. He did not address the judge. Smith said she planned to file paperwork that Kelly was waiving his arraignment and pleading not guilty. An email seeking comment was left for Smith.

Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Mitchell Weinberg determined that Christine Falzone, 33, was about 35 to 37 weeks pregnant at the time of her death in December.

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The Legislature passed a bill in 2017 that defines a fetus at 20 weeks of development and beyond as a person for purposes of criminal prosecution of murder. Republican Gov. Chris Sununu signed the bill into law. It took effect in 2018.

Kelly’s case is the first time the state had charged someone with murder in the death of a fetus, said Michael Garrity, a spokesperson for the attorney general’s office.

Kelly was indicted by a Carroll County grand jury on Friday on two counts of second-degree murder. He recklessly caused the deaths of Falzone and her fetus, according to the indictment.

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Lawyers said they were waiting on forensic test results. They agreed to schedule a hearing in June and a potential trial date in 2025.

Kelly, who was being held without bail, has several criminal convictions. The most recent was for assault in 2019, police said.

Kelly initially was arrested in December on a single second-degree murder charge connected to Falzone’s death.

Police said they found Falzone unconscious and not breathing at the Ossipee home she shared with Kelly. It was not immediately known if Kelly was the father of the unborn child.





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Pro-gun group: Adding mental health records to NH do-not-sell list ‘insane,’ ‘crazy’

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Pro-gun group: Adding mental health records to NH do-not-sell list ‘insane,’ ‘crazy’


Pro-gun rights groups have made a Second Amendment argument against a New Hampshire bill that would stop gun sales to individuals whom a court had found dangerous enough to require commitment to a psychiatric hospital. One speaker warned a House committee at a public hearing last month against limiting the “God-given” right to own a gun.

The New Hampshire Firearms Coalition is reaching out to voters with another argument that mental health advocates – and the bill’s Republican sponsor – say is derogatory: It argues that it is “crazy” and “insane” to address public safety concerns by adding individuals hospitalized in limited circumstances to a do-not-sell list, as House Bill 1711 would.

The bill was prompted by the November shooting death of state hospital security officer Bradley Hass by former patient John Madore, who was then shot and killed by a state trooper. Madore had been committed to the state hospital at least once and had his guns confiscated in 2016.

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The gun rights coalition instead argues that people hospitalized due to mental illness and dangerousness should be detained in the hospital until they are well. Upon release, it says, they should not be kept from buying a gun. 

“If these people are so violent that they need to be disarmed, why are they released at all?” reads the flyer, which was sent to some House Republicans and their constituents. On the opposite side, it says: “Crazy is as crazy does.”

Rep. Terry Roy, a Deerfield Republican who co-sponsored HB 1711 with House Democratic Rep. David Meuse of Portsmouth, received the flyer, as did his constituents. 

“It was insulting,” said Roy. “It was demeaning to anyone who has a mental illness, which a large portion of our population will at some point.” An estimated 1 in 5 people experiences a mental illness each year. Roy said that once he explained the bill to the couple of constituents who called him, “they were happy.”

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Susan Stearns, executive director of NAMI New Hampshire, responded similarly when she saw the flyer.

“It’s deliberately trying to exploit the stereotype around people with mental illness being violent and needing to be kept away from society,” she said. “Ultimately that hurts a lot of Granite Staters and perpetuates that type of stereotype and stigma.”

Stearns and Roy said the flyer also misrepresents and overlooks the bill’s intent and measured balance between public safety and respecting the civil rights of people with mental illness. Not all mental health hospitalizations would qualify someone to be added to the federal National Instant Criminal Background Check System. And there would be a clearly defined process for getting off the list. 

Rep. J.R. Hoell, a Dunbarton Republican and secretary of the New Hampshire Firearms Coalition, interprets the bill and flyer differently. 

While the flyer does not say so, Hoell said he believes most people with mental illness are not violent and are more often the victims of violence. The use of “crazy” and “insane” was a “play on words,” he said, not intended to be insulting.

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In Hoell’s mind, the bill would wrongly criminalize mental illness by allowing the federal government to deny people who’ve never committed a crime their Second Amendment rights simply because they’ve been involuntarily hospitalized due to danger concerns. 

However, federal law already prohibits anyone committed to a psychiatric institution from buying or possessing a gun; New Hampshire, however, does not submit the relevant information to the database.

“This magic list does not solve the issue,” Hoell said, noting that upon release someone can get a gun beyond a gun store. “If you are a threat to others, you need residential care. If you don’t need residential care, you are not a threat to others. It’s A or B.” 

Meuse remembers the day Roy, who has voted against every gun safety bill Meuse has supported, asked him to co-sponsor HB 1711. The two have collaborated on bail reform legislation but never shared common ground on gun bills.

“I just remember being really surprised and then thinking to myself, ‘OK, don’t do anything to screw this up,’” Meuse said. “This is a really good thing.” 

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It will go to the full House later this month with an overwhelming 18-2 vote from the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee that it be passed. In emotional testimony, the state hospital’s associate medical director called the shooting, during which the hospital security notification system failed, “one of the worst moments of my life.” 

While eight committee Republicans joined Democrats in backing the bill, Roy knows he’ll face a fight on the House floor from Hoell, libertarians, and some in his own party.

“I’m disappointed in the shortsightedness of the Second Amendment community,” Roy said. “What they don’t seem to get is that we are better off not having dangerous people buying firearms because every time there is a mass shooting and someone has a mental health issue, there are calls for more restrictions on firearms.”

The bill would not apply to people who seek behavioral health treatment voluntarily or those who are the subject of an involuntary emergency admission petition. 

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The legislation would apply only to people who are involuntarily admitted on a non-emergency basis, after a court hearing, during which they would have legal representation. A judge would have to find them to have a mental condition that makes them dangerous to themselves or others. 

The bill allows a court to confiscate an individual’s firearms and ammunition, but the person would have more control over how those guns are taken and where they are held. 

The bill would provide a person the opportunity to petition a court for review of their “mental capacity,” a first step to being removed from the database. In some cases, they could do that within 15 days after their “absolute” discharge, meaning they are complying with treatment requirements. In other cases they must wait six months.

The Disability Rights Center-NH and NAMI NH required the bill include a process to be removed from the database. And the former persuaded the committee to limit the type of information entered into the database to protect individuals’ privacy. Even then, the Disability Rights Center-NH said it won’t support the bill because of civil rights concerns but also won’t oppose it. 

Those same civil rights concerns will lead Hoell to oppose it vehemently. 

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At best, he said, he’d support a state “patient list” of people deemed a danger to others due to a short-term mental illness. That would keep information out of federal hands, a priority, he said. He would support a legal path to regaining the right to buy and purchase a gun. 

Meuse believes there are other New Hampshire gun owners, some of them lawmakers, who will split with Hoell and back the bill. And he thinks the shooting death of Haas by an individual who was committed to a psychiatric facility and had his guns confiscated will be persuasive. 

“When you see the surveys, it’s not just Democrats and the left, (but) a lot of people who own firearms, who hunt, who basically think that we’ve just sort of reached the point where if we don’t do something, the consequences of doing nothing are going to catch up to us even faster.”

This story was originally published by the New Hampshire Bulletin.



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Concord Police Department Offers Updates On Recent Cases: Follow-Ups

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Concord Police Department Offers Updates On Recent Cases: Follow-Ups


CONCORD, NH — Here are some recent updates to cases in Concord.

Concord police were sent to William Healy Memorial Park, near the Exit 13 onramp of Interstate 93 on Saturday, around 2:45 p.m., to investigate a BB gun shooting. Witnesses reported seeing a man, covered in blood, down in the street.

The man was rushed to Concord Hospital with a chest wound.

Find out what’s happening in Concordwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Deputy Chief John Thomas of the Concord Police Department said officials were not commenting on the incident, at this time. When asked why police were at the scene for two days, including having bloodhounds brought in Sunday morning, he said it was to process the scene.

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Officers kept the park partially closed to the public while collecting evidence.

Find out what’s happening in Concordwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Patch has learned the victim in the case, a homeless man, was in serious condition at Concord Hospital. The victim was struck with a single BB — a metal pellet with a sharpened point that looked like a bullet, which entered his lung and caused major damage, even though it was a BB.

Airport Road Investigation

Three times during the past week, Concord police have been sent to 58 Airport Road.

The first time, on March 12, around 11:30 a.m., a property manager reported a broken windowpane and a burglary possibly in progress. Merrimack County Sheriff’s deputies assisted, and police also learned a woman with red hair had fled the area on a scooter but could not find her. After checking the building, police cleared.

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Around 9:15 a.m. on Wednesday, detectives returned with a search warrant, and one noted the scooter was back home. Police were at the home for several hours.

Thomas said the department was offering no comment because it, too, was an open investigation.

Patch has learned, however, that Angela Spataro, 32, a former resident at the home who was evicted after it was sold due to foreclosure to a house flipper, was arrested on a criminal trespass charge. Also arrested was Jay M. Pease, 36, of Concord, also for criminal trespass.

Around 10:30 a.m. on Monday, police were requested back to the scene, after the property manager reported a former resident inside the house as well as another person tapping into electricity in the house for their camper. Spataro was arrested again for criminal trespass.

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Neither Pease nor Spataro are strangers to the police.

During the past seven years, she has been arrested on endangering the welfare of a child, aggravated driving while intoxicated, DWI, operating without a valid license, and false fire alarm charges, and warrants.

Pease has an active felony habitual offender charge out of Holderness from February 2022 and an active felony habitual offender charge out of Concord from August 2023.

Pease is a felon due to a habitual offender conviction in February 2023. He also pleaded guilty to habitual offender charges in Belmont and Meredith in June 2023. Pease has also been arrested on possession of drugs, manufacture of controlled drugs, stalking, breach of bail, domestic violence, transport drugs in a motor vehicle, assault, and driving after revocation or suspension charges, and warrants.

Fatal Fisherville Road Crash

The man who was killed during a motor vehicle accident last month on Fisherville Road has been identified.

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Timothy Hoyt, 67, of Concord was struck and killed on Feb. 21 at just before 6 a.m. The road was closed for several hours during the investigation.

No other information was available about Hoyt.

Teacher Found Dead Inside Condo

A woman who was found dead inside her condominium on Fisherville Road last month has also been identified. last month.

Heidy Voigt, 57, was discovered inside her apartment after her employer, the Winnisquam Regional School District, requested a welfare check at her home when she did not show up for work. She died of natural causes.

Originally from Bedford, Massachusetts, she taught social studies at Winnisquam Regional High School for three decades. Voigt was named Teacher of the Year in 2013.

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A memorial scholarship fund for Winnisquam students has been created in her honor. Donations can be mailed to the school or on GoFundMe.com, linked here.

Do you have a news tip? Please email it to tony.schinella@patch.com. View videos on Tony Schinella’s YouTube.com channel or Rumble.com channel. Follow the NH politics Twitter account @NHPatchPolitics for all our campaign coverage.


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