By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org
DOVER – The next jury seated to decide if Timothy Verrill is guilty of double murder in Farmington can consider the fact that police and prosecutors mishandled key evidence in the first, botched trial, ultimately deciding if the investigators have any credibility.
Verrill’s 2019 trial ended when a mistrial was declared after prosecutors informed Verrill’s defense team three times during the proceedings that significant evidence which contradicted the state’s case had been withheld from Verrill’s lawyers.
The errors were blamed on the New Hampshire State Police investigators who worked on the case. The New Hampshire Supreme Court would later call the evidence snafus a reprehensible violation of Verrill’s right to a fair trial.
Verrill is scheduled for a new trial in the fall.
Strafford Superior Court Judge Mark Howard’s sanctions, issued in the case at the end of July, include the jury instruction that allows jurors to weigh police witness credibility in light of the evidence failures.
“In any criminal prosecution, the State has a legal duty to provide evidence and information about the case to the defense in a timely manner,” Howard’s jury instruction reads. “In this case, the prosecutors and the Major Crime Unit of the State Police failed to disclose information to the defense in a timely manner. Although the failure to disclose evidence and information in a timely manner does not necessarily, in and of itself, bear on the question of guilt or innocence, you may, if you think it appropriate in light of all the evidence, take into account the delay in disclosing evidence when evaluating the credibility or reliability of the State Police investigators who were responsible for the untimely disclosures, or whether the State has proved the defendant’s guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Howard’s ruling also includes sanctions against the prosecution, barring them from using information against Verrill that was included in the delayed evidence. The State is also on the hook to pay costs to the defense for additional investigation stemming from the mishandled evidence.
Verrill is charged in the stabbing and beating deaths of Christine Sullivan, 48, and Jenna Pellegrini, 32, at the home of Dean Smoronk in Farmington, where their bodies were found Jan. 27, 2017. Sullivan lived with Smoronk and Pellegrini was a houseguest, according to court records. Verrill also allegedly tried to hide their bodies under the home’s porch and attempted to hide or destroy other evidence.
Verrill and Smoronk were members of the Mountain Men Motorcycle Club, an organization known to deal drugs, according to court records.
Prosecutors said at trial that Verrill thought one of the women was a police informant. Sullivan had been involved with Smoronk and defense attorneys proffered the theory that the murders were connected to an attempted expansion of the drug business with a motorcycle club.
Verrill unsuccessfully appealed to the New Hampshire Supreme Court, seeking to have the charges dismissed on double jeopardy grounds. The Supreme Court denied the dismissal, but ordered the trial court to consider issuing sanctions against the State in light of the evidence mishandling.