By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org

MANCHESTER — The uneasy vigil inside the Hillsborough Superior Court — North in Manchester will reconvene Tuesday as jurors need more time to decide if Sununu Youth Services Center house leader Bradley Asbury is guilty in being an accomplice to rape.

The jury deliberated all day Monday on the case after starting its work Friday afternoon. It is giving no clues as to where its members are leaning as no questions were asked by jurors during the day-long session.

Inside the courthouse, Asbury, 70, paced the halls and spoke with his friends and family members who have been by his side throughout the trial. Alleged victim Michael Gilpatrick, 41, and his wife, Kelly Gilpatrick, were also in the court waiting for an answer, though they stayed out of the public eye.

Asbury is accused of being party to a 1998 rape when Gilpatrick was 14 at what was then called YDC. According to Gilpatrick, Asbury and YDC staffer James Woodlock held him down in a stairway while two other staffers, Jeffrey Buskey and Stephen Murphy, raped him. Asbury denies the event happened, and his attorney, David Rothstein, argues Gilpatrick is making up the rape to cash in on the YDC scandal.

More than 1,000 adult survivors have brought civil lawsuits against the state over the abuse they say they suffered while in YDC custody. Gilpatrick’s civil lawsuit is scheduled for next spring, and he claims multiple physical and sexual assaults perpetrated by YDC staff.

Asbury is just the second abuse suspect to be brought to trial since former New Hampshire Attorney General Gordon MacDonald created the YDC task force in 2019. In September, a jury considering the sexual abuse case against Victor Malavet deadlocked resulting in a mistrial.