UPDATE: On Wednesday, the state Attorney General’s Office Identified the inmate who died as James Dale, 65. The news release Thursday said:
Attorney General John M. Formella and Commissioner Helen E. Hanks announce that resident James Dale (age 65) has died. Mr. Dale was involved in a resident-on-resident assault on the morning of February 13, 2023 inside the Northern New Hampshire Correctional Facility in Berlin.
Officials from the New Hampshire State Police and the Attorney General’s office are now actively investigating the circumstances surrounding Mr. Dale’s death.
An autopsy is set to be conducted on Thursday, February 16 by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
Additional information will be released as it becomes available while protecting the integrity of the investigation.
The following is the story InDepthNH.org posted Tuesday night. We will update the story further as we learn more about what happened.
By NANCY WEST, InDepthNH.org
The New Hampshire Department of Corrections has refused to identify the inmate who died from the resident-on-resident assault Monday at the state prison in Berlin, but InDepthNH has learned it was James Dale.
Dale was convicted of second-degree murder for raping and killing Elizabeth Knapp, 6, in her bed in Contoocook on July 3, 1997, and was sentenced to serve 60 to 120 years in prison.
Dale has been adamant about his innocence and has been fighting to prove it for years.
In a recent phone interview with InDepthNH.org, Dale said he had received some important information about the DNA in the case that he said would prove his innocence.
Dale had been on the waiting list with the National Innocence Project for a number of years and said he recently received notification from the local New England Innocence Project that they were still reviewing his case.
When asked during an interview at the Berlin facility in 2016 why he continues to fight for a new trial, Dale insisted: “Because I didn’t do it.
“Yes, it’s the honest-to-God’s truth. I’ve done a lot of things. I should have been doing life years ago, but not for this.”
InDepthNH.org has interviewed Dale numerous times over the years chronicling his fight for a new trial.
Some of the past news stories can be found here.
The case was highly publicized at the time, and another man, Richard Buchanan, was arrested shortly after the murder then released five months later.
At the time of Elizabeth Knapp’s murder, Dale lived in an apartment upstairs from the one where she lived with her mother, sister and Buchanan in Contoocook.
The brief news release from the Department of Corrections Tuesday said:
“The resident that sustained serious injuries has died and appropriate next of kin notifications have been made.”
The investigation has been turned over to the Attorney General’s Office, and any further updates will be provided by them, the release said.
On Monday, the DOC announced the “investigation of a resident-on-resident assault which occurred at the Northern New Hampshire Correctional Facility in Berlin.”
The department hasn’t identified the inmate who allegedly assaulted Dale.
Officials said it occurred around 7 a.m. Monday morning.
“…facility officials responded to an assault between two residents. One resident received serious injuries and was transported to an area hospital and has since been transported to a trauma center,” the DOC said Monday.