The most famous murders in New Hampshire include the Bear Brook barrel killings, the Pamela Smart murder-for-hire, the stabbings of two Dartmouth professors, the shooting of Manchester Officer Michael Briggs that produced the state’s last death sentence, the killing of University of New Hampshire student Lizzi Marriott, and colonial-era cases that shaped the state’s criminal law. Several remain active matters, either on appeal, in resentencing, or in the files of the state’s Cold Case Unit.
The Bear Brook Barrel Murders
In 1985, a barrel in the woods near Bear Brook State Park in Allenstown was found to contain the remains of an adult woman and a young girl. A second barrel, roughly 300 feet away, surfaced in 2000 with the remains of two more girls. All four had been killed in the late 1970s or early 1980s, and their identities stayed unknown for decades.1NPR. 40 Years Later, the Last Remaining Bear Brook Murder Victim Is Identified
The killer was identified in 2017 as Terry Peder Rasmussen, a drifter who used aliases including “Bob Evans.” He had died in a California prison in 2010 while serving a sentence for killing a common-law wife.2WBUR. Bear Brook Murder Middle Child Identified In 2019, genetic genealogy identified three of the victims as Marlyse Honeychurch and her daughters Marie Vaughn (about nine) and Sarah McWaters (about two), last seen in California in 1978.3New Hampshire Department of Justice. Identification of Final Unidentified Victim in Allenstown Homicide Case
The last victim, long known only as the “middle child,” was identified in September 2025 as Rea Rasmussen, about three years old at death and the biological daughter of Terry Rasmussen and a woman named Pepper Reed. The New Hampshire State Police Cold Case Unit and the DNA Doe Project built a family tree of roughly 25,000 people to trace her lineage.2WBUR. Bear Brook Murder Middle Child Identified That same work identified Pepper Reed, born in 1952 in Texas and unseen since the late 1970s, whom authorities now believe was likely another Rasmussen victim.4NHPR. Bear Brook Murders: Middle Child Mystery Victim Identified
Rasmussen is also suspected in the disappearance of Denise Beaudin, a 23-year-old Manchester woman last seen on Thanksgiving Day 1981. Her remains have never been found.5WMUR. New Hampshire Unsolved: Denise Beaudin The case inspired the podcast Bear Brook, hosted by New Hampshire Public Radio’s Jason Moon, which has been downloaded more than 20 million times.1NPR. 40 Years Later, the Last Remaining Bear Brook Murder Victim Is Identified
Pamela Smart and the Murder of Gregg Smart
On May 1, 1990, 24-year-old Gregg Smart was killed in his Derry condominium. Prosecutors said his wife Pamela Smart, a 22-year-old high school media director, had orchestrated the killing. She was carrying on an affair with 15-year-old student Billy Flynn and, according to prosecutors, coerced Flynn and two other teens to kill her husband so she could collect his $140,000 life insurance policy.6CNN. Pamela Smart Case Timeline
The 1991 trial was one of the first in American history to be televised gavel-to-gavel. Pamela Smart was convicted of accomplice to first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and witness tampering, and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The three accomplices, all minors at the time, pleaded guilty to charges related to second-degree murder and have since been released, leaving Smart the only person still incarcerated in connection with the killing.7WMUR. Pamela Smart New Hampshire Petition
Smart has pursued release for more than 34 years. The New Hampshire Executive Council has denied her commutation hearings on multiple occasions, including in 2005, 2019, and 2022. In May 2025, Governor Kelly Ayotte rejected another request, saying the case did not present the “exceptional circumstances” required.8WCAX. NH Governor Rejects Hearing for Pamela Smart In 2024, Smart released a videotaped statement accepting full responsibility for her husband’s killing for the first time.6CNN. Pamela Smart Case Timeline A habeas corpus petition filed in early 2026 challenges her conviction on grounds that include the accuracy of trial transcripts of recorded conversations with a prosecution witness. The State asked the court to dismiss the petition in May 2026.9InDepthNH.org. State Asks Court to Dismiss Pam Smart’s Latest Bid for Freedom
The Dartmouth Professor Murders
In January 2001, Dartmouth College professors Half and Susanne Zantop were stabbed to death inside their home in Etna. The killers were Robert Tulloch and James Parker, two teenagers from Chelsea, Vermont. Tulloch was 17. Both pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder.10WMUR. Resentencing Robert Tulloch, Dartmouth Murders
Parker’s plea deal required his testimony against Tulloch and brought a sentence of 25 years to life. He was released on parole in June 2024.11The Dartmouth. Convicted Killer of Zantop Professors to Receive Resentencing Hearing Tulloch received an automatic life-without-parole sentence under then-existing New Hampshire law. The 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Miller v. Alabama held that mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juvenile offenders violate the Eighth Amendment, and Tulloch has sought resentencing since 2013. A new sentencing hearing was scheduled for April 2026, with no decision issued as of early that year.12WMUR. Robert Tulloch Dartmouth Resentencing
Officer Michael Briggs and the Death Penalty Fight
On October 16, 2006, Manchester Police Officer Michael Briggs and his partner, John Breckenridge, responded to a report of gunshots on Lake Street. A hooded suspect on Litchfield Lane shot Briggs at close range after being told to stop. Briggs died the next day. The shooter, Michael Addison, fled as Breckenridge fired four rounds at him.13Death Penalty Information Center. Partner of Murdered New Hampshire Police Officer Now Opposes Death Penalty
Addison was convicted in 2008 and sentenced to death, making him New Hampshire’s sole death row inmate. The prosecution was led by Kelly Ayotte, then the state’s attorney general.14NHPR. New Hampshire Death Penalty Capital Punishment In 2019, New Hampshire became the last New England state to abolish the death penalty when the legislature overrode Governor Chris Sununu’s veto. The repeal was not retroactive, so Addison’s sentence stood.15Death Penalty Information Center. New Hampshire Death Penalty Information
Addison’s lawyers have argued that executing him after the state abolished capital punishment would conflict with New Hampshire’s contemporary values. As of March 2026, the New Hampshire Supreme Court was reviewing the case following oral arguments but had not ruled.16WMUR. Michael Addison NH Supreme Court Appeal If the sentence is upheld and carried out, Addison would be the only person in the United States executed after the death penalty was abolished in his state.17WMUR. Michael Briggs Michael Addison Timeline Breckenridge, who initially testified in favor of the death penalty, later changed his position, citing his Catholic faith and the possibility of spiritual redemption.13Death Penalty Information Center. Partner of Murdered New Hampshire Police Officer Now Opposes Death Penalty
Efforts to reinstate capital punishment have continued. In early 2026, Republican lawmakers introduced House Bill 1413. Governor Ayotte publicly stated she would “like to see the death penalty restored.” The House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee voted 13-0 against the bill, and the full House rejected it without debate on February 19, 2026.18News from the States. House Shuts Down Effort to Revive Death Penalty in New Hampshire
The Murder of Lizzi Marriott
In October 2012, 19-year-old University of New Hampshire student Elizabeth “Lizzi” Marriott, originally from Westborough, Massachusetts, was killed at an apartment in Dover. Seth Mazzaglia strangled and sexually assaulted Marriott after she rejected his sexual advances. His girlfriend, Kathryn McDonough, admitted luring Marriott to the apartment. The two disposed of Marriott’s body off Peirce Island in Portsmouth; it has never been recovered.19NBC News. Kathryn McDonough Parole, Elizabeth Marriott Case
In June 2014, Mazzaglia was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. At sentencing he denied the murder but acknowledged playing “a part in covering up her death.”20CBS News Boston. Lizzi Marriott’s Family to Confront Seth Mazzaglia at Murder Sentencing The New Hampshire Supreme Court unanimously denied his appeal for a new trial in December 2016.21NHPR. Mazzaglia Sentenced to Life in Prison for Murder of UNH Student McDonough received immunity for her testimony against Mazzaglia and was separately sentenced to one and a half to three years for hindering prosecution. Denied parole in 2014, she served her full maximum sentence and left prison on July 16, 2016, with no supervision requirements.22Seacoast Online. Kat McDonough Released From Prison
The Death of Celina Cass
Eleven-year-old Celina Cass disappeared from her home in West Stewartstown on July 26, 2011. After a six-day search, her body, wrapped in a blanket, was recovered from the Connecticut River near a dam about half a mile from her house.23Union Leader. Stepfather Charged With Murder of Celina Cass Suspicion centered on her stepfather, Wendell Noyes, who exhibited unusual behavior during the investigation, including crawling on the ground and pretending to throw a grenade in front of cameras.24NBC News. Celina Cass: Arrest Made in Case of Missing 11-Year-Old
Noyes was not charged until June 2016, when he was arrested for second-degree murder. In February 2017, a court in Lancaster ruled him incompetent to stand trial and found his competency could not be restored. The murder charges were dropped, and Noyes was committed to a state psychiatric institution after an evaluation determined his mental illness created “a potentially serious likelihood of danger to others.”25NHPR. Man Accused in Stepdaughter’s Death Found Incompetent to Stand Trial
H. H. Holmes, Born in Gilmanton
Herman Webster Mudgett, far better known as H. H. Holmes, was born on May 16, 1860, in Gilmanton. The Mudgett family home still stands at 500 Province Road. He attended the Gilmanton Academy and eloped with a New Hampshire woman, Clara Lovering, at age 18 before leaving the state.26NH Magazine. Peering Into the Darkness: The First Serial Killer
Holmes committed no known murders in New Hampshire. His crimes unfolded primarily in Chicago, where he built a hotel on 63rd Street fitted with secret chutes, vats of acid, and a furnace for disposing of bodies. He is confirmed to have killed at least nine people, though before his execution he confessed to 27 murders and later recanted much of that statement. He was captured by the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in a life insurance fraud scheme and eventually linked to the killings of three children of his associate Benjamin Pitezel. He was hanged in Philadelphia on May 7, 1896.26NH Magazine. Peering Into the Darkness: The First Serial Killer
Ruth Blay, the Last Woman Executed in New Hampshire
In June 1768, an infant’s body was discovered under floorboards in a schoolhouse barn in South Hampton. Ruth Blay, a 31-year-old itinerant schoolteacher from Massachusetts, was charged not with infanticide but with the capital crime of “concealment of a bastard child.” She said the baby had been stillborn after an accidental fall and that she had hidden the body out of shame. She was convicted the same day her trial began, on September 3, 1768.27We’re History. Ruth Blay
Blay received four reprieves but no final pardon and was hanged in Portsmouth on December 30, 1768. In a broadside published before her execution, she wrote, “I never had a single thought of murdering the infant.” Twenty-five years after her death, New Hampshire removed the death penalty for the crime of concealment, a reform her case helped inspire. She remains the last woman executed in New Hampshire.28Monstrous Regiment of Women. Ruth Blay and the Crime of Concealing Birth
New Hampshire’s Open Cold Cases
The state’s Cold Case Unit, a partnership between the Department of Justice and the State Police Major Crime Unit, was established in 2009 to investigate homicides, missing persons cases, and suspicious deaths unresolved for at least five years. As of October 2025, its caseload was 126 open files: 97 unsolved homicides, 16 missing persons, and 13 suspicious deaths.29Concord Monitor. From Unsolved Homicides to Missing Persons and Suspicious Deaths
The unit has solved over a dozen cases, often by applying modern forensics to decades-old evidence. One recent breakthrough was the 1975 murder of Judy Lord, a 22-year-old found sexually assaulted and strangled in her Concord apartment after her 20-month-old son’s cries led the building manager to the scene. Investigators had suspected her next-door neighbor, Ernest Theodore Gable, but a 1975 FBI microscopic hair analysis incorrectly excluded him. That forensic method was later discredited by the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI. DNA analysis of seminal fluid from the scene produced a statistical match to Gable, and the case was formally closed on November 24, 2025. Gable had died in Los Angeles in 1987 after being stabbed in a street argument, so no prosecution was possible.30NHPR. New Hampshire Cold Case Unit Solves Judy Lord Murder
Prominent unsolved cases include the 1990 killing of Sheila Holmes, a 31-year-old mother of five from Barrington, found strangled near railroad tracks in Dover on April 13, 1990, with blunt-force head trauma, multiple rib fractures, and a lacerated renal artery. Edward Pehowic, a family friend serving life without parole for a 1996 Portsmouth murder, reportedly admitted at one point to killing Holmes but later recanted.31WMUR. New Hampshire Unsolved Case File: Killing of Sheila Holmes Other long-standing cases include the 1969 disappearance of 11-year-old Debra Horn from Allenstown and the 2010 death of Lynne Brennan, a Manchester woman found dead in her home, for which the unit released new surveillance footage in 2025.29Concord Monitor. From Unsolved Homicides to Missing Persons and Suspicious Deaths