Indifferant Hinsdale Police, A Terrble Toll For Hinsdale!

At least they are warning the public...this crap is all around us and people are dropping like flies.

Worcester officials issue advisory after drug deaths

Worcester officials are issuing a public health advisory after at least nine drug overdose deaths there in the past six days.

Police suspect heroin is the problem, either unusually pure or cut with something deadly, but they can’t be sure until toxicology reports are finished.

Police say if the current pace of overdoses, both fatal and non-fatal, continues, there will be 503 this year in the city. Last year, there were 447.

Police Chief Gary Gemme said, “You never know what you’re going to put in your system when you buy narcotics off the street.”

The city’s public health director, Derek Brindisi, said officials are working with local health clinics and addiction treatment providers to spread the word that there’s something especially dangerous about the heroin circulating in Worcester right now.

“We’re in the midst of a public health emergency,” Brindisi said.

Probe into 2012Chesterfield homicide complicated by many rumors and theories

By ALYSSA DANDREA Sentinel Staff

SentinePosted: Tuesday, August 5, 2014

 

Posted: Tuesday, August 5, 2014 12:00 pm

Why did Douglas M. Farr Jr. fatally shoot his friend Mark T. McAuley near a secluded section of old logging roads in Chesterfield in April 2012?

That question is one state investigators probed for more than two years and yet the answer remains a mystery today. The authorities never made an arrest in the case, which was complicated by multiple theories and rumors about what could have happened.

Farr, 32, of Hinsdale told investigators he shot McAuley, 39, also of Hinsdale, on April 14, 2012, in self-defense with his .40-caliber pistol, according to the N.H. Attorney General’s Office.

But that office’s investigators found Farr’s tale of self-defense implausible. Furthermore, some of Farr’s friends and family repeatedly questioned whether he had told them the truth in the days after the shooting.

Those revelations are part of the nearly 1,300-page report on the shooting the N.H. Attorney General’s Office released last week.

The Sentinel filed a Right-to-Know request seeking a copy of the report more than a year ago, after Farr and his fiancee, Erin Breault, 35, of Hinsdale, died in a car crash on Route 12 in Keene. But the office did not conclude its investigation into the homicide until May, and refused to release the report until last week.

Only one witness

McAuley’s body was found one-quarter mile south from the Bradley Road and North Hinsdale Road intersection, police said. He suffered multiple gunshot wounds, according to an autopsy.

The authorities lacked eyewitnesses, including Farr, who in the year between the shooting and his death turned down interviews with police, at the advice of his attorneys.

As The Sentinel’s review of the documents continues, here is some of what else N.H. State Police interviews with key witnesses revealed:

Multiple acquaintances of Farr and McAuley said the two struggled with drug addiction, and speculated whether the shooting was a drug deal gone bad.

Andrew Laffond of Hinsdale, a cousin of Farr’s, told police he believed the shooting was about heroin or drug money owed to Farr. He claimed Farr was addicted to drugs and that someone had given Vicodin to Farr shortly before the shooting.

“I also heard that my cousin said that he was real scared of somebody and that if worse came to worse then he’d have to kill somebody, and that’s what made me really believe that, you know, he could’ve possibly,” Laffond told police during an interview that June.

Farr was married to Heather Burnett of Hinsdale for about five years and had three children with her. She told police Farr was dependent on narcotics, so much so that he stole pills from family members.

She and Breault had a hunch that Farr repeatedly caused injury to himself so that he could keep getting narcotics, according to police interviews. Neither could prove that theory, though.

Burnett said Farr was depressed and had contemplated suicide, but she never thought he would purposefully harm another man. Burnett said she didn’t know McAuley.

Mark LaValley of Brattleboro, an acquaintance of Farr, told police he speculated that Farr shot McAuley and then shot himself in the shoulder. He also indicated a third man was involved in the shooting, but declined to say how he knew that, according to the report.

In addition to contemplating whether the shooting was fueled by drugs, acquaintances and family of Farr shared other theories with police. But because none of them had witnessed the shooting first-hand, they could only speculate.

One rumor was that McAuley hired a private investigator to dig up dirt on Burnett, according to documents in the case file. The theory was that McAuley used the promise of that evidence to lure Farr into the woods. Farr would do anything for his children, acquaintances said, and he could use that evidence against Burnett to seek primary parenting responsibilities for them during a custody battle.

But there was no proof to back up that rumor, according to the report.

Farr’s fiancee, Breault, and mother, Monica Burdette, also alleged Burnett was involved in getting Farr to the Chesterfield woods, but when police asked what proof they had to make those claims, nothing materialized.

Farr’s mother allegedly told Burnett during a phone conversation that someone was after Farr, although she never specified who. The call took place on the day of the shooting, and Burnett recalled Burdette was in hysterics.

Initial reports to police from Burdette and Breault suggest McAuley had used zip ties to strap Farr to a tree before shooting him in the shoulder. Farr also told the women he was able to cut himself free with a knife McAuley dropped, and he then shot McAuley, according to documents.

Farr’s ex-father-in-law, Bradley Burnett, told police he heard two men tied Farr up and that he then escaped, shooting one of them.

A lifelong friend of Farr’s, Leon Dunbar, said the craziest theory he heard was that somebody drove by the shooting scene and saw a Chevrolet Tahoe parked with two men seated inside, holding pit bulls. That story’s relevance to the shooting and its origin was a mystery to him, he told police.

Dunbar said he tried to convince Farr to talk to police to set the story straight, but Farr always said his attorneys, including public defender Caroline L. Smith, advised him not to.

In the report, the Attorney General’s Office redacted some personal identifying information and medical information under exceptions allowed in the Right-to-Know law and through the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. The officials also did not include an interview with a minor, criminal records and certain photographs that would constitute an invasion of privacy, according to a letter dated July 28 from the office.