Concord experienced a wave of violent crime in summer 2019 with back-to-back homicides and murder-suicides – something police referred to as “nothing short of a nightmare.”
Two homicides and a murder-suicide in a 10-day span, in addition to another murder-suicide this fall stretched local resources and detectives thin and required the city’s police department to request assistance from other agencies at the height of the crisis.
In the early-morning hours of July 19, a husband and wife were found dead inside their apartment at 19 Concord Garden. The New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office said 81-year-old Pal Darjee stabbed and bludgeoned his wife, 47-year-old Lila Darjee, and then stabbed himself once in the heart in a domestic violence murder-suicide.
Exactly one week later, Concord police responded to a murder at the Crutchfield Building on Pitman Street. Marshall John Villeneuve, 64, of Concord was found stabbed to death in his home on July 26. While police continued to gather evidence at the scene, they released photos of Joseph King Hanright, who was initially considered “a person of interest.”
Bay State police ultimately arrested Hanright, 30, of Methuen, Mass., days later. He now awaits trial from jail on alternative counts of second-degree murder in connection with Villeneuve’s death.
Less than 48 hours after responding to the Crutchfield Building, city and state investigators were on scene of two suspicious death investigations in different parts of the city. Initially, police were called to a Concord Street apartment complex on July 28 at 4:05 a.m., where it was reported that a woman had suffered a gunshot wound. Her death was later ruled a suicide.
While the city’s first responders were still at the Concord Street scene, they started to receive multiple reports of a stabbing outside Edgewood Heights Condo Associates on Branch Turnpike. Witnesses told police that Nathalia Da Paixao, 35, had suffered multiple stab wounds in a brutal assault that began in her family’s apartment.
Da Paixao, a mother of two, was rushed to Concord Hospital where she later died.
The state attorney general’s office quickly brought charges against her husband, Emerson Jaques Figueiredo. The 42-year-old was recently indicted on alternative counts of second-degree murder and is awaiting trial from jail.
The string of deaths continued into the fall. On the night of Sept. 25, police responded to the parking lot of the Steeplegate Mall for a murder-suicide. Alexander Thorne, 22, fatally shot longtime girlfriend Zoe Desmarais, 21, outside the mall shortly before 8 p.m. and then shot himself, the attorney general’s office said. Desmarais was taken by ambulance to Concord Hospital where she later died, and Thorne was pronounced dead at the scene.
Just as the Capital City faced a spike in murders in 2019, the number of statewide incidents also climbed. New Hampshire has seen more than 30 homicides so far this year, just shy of its modern-day peak of 34 in 1991.
Outside of Concord, one of the cases that received extensive attention this past March was a double-homicide in Alton. An 11-year-old boy stood accused in the deaths of James Eckert, 48, and his wife, Lizette Eckert, 50, both residents of the small town. The Eckerts each died of a single gunshot wound to the head.
The boy was charged with the juvenile offenses of second-degree murder because he was too young to be prosecuted under the state’s criminal code as an adult. As a result, the case against the boy has proceeded behind closed doors and few people will ever know the outcome.