By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD — In the weeks after Jason Rothe’s death inside the State Prison for Men’s Secure Psychiatric Unit, and while the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office had an active criminal investigation, then-Captain Scott Marshall recalled the strange meetings he had with the officers involved in Rothe’s death.
“I knew we were going there to go over the use of force, it was very bizarre to me the whole process,” Marshall testified on Monday.
Marshall took the witness stand in Merrimack County Superior Court as the murder trial against Matthew Millar, the former corrections officer charged with second-degree murder in Rothe’s death, continues. Marshall was the captain assigned to the SPU in 2023 and told jurors about the meetings he and Hanks had with the officers.
Hanks brought a copy of the internal DOC use of force report on Rothe’s death, and discussed with each officer what they did during the April 29, 2023 cell extraction. At the time of the interviews, DOC officials had been told not to speak to the witnesses due to the criminal investigation, though Marshall testified he was not aware of that communication.
Hanks drove those meetings, Marshall said, questioning the officers. In each meeting with each officer, Hanks mentioned the possibility that Rothe could have died of asphyxia due to him being put in a prone position on his stomach, handcuffed and leg-shackled. At the time of these meetings, Marshall said, no official cause of death had been determined and the autopsy had not been completed.
“I did not know the purpose of those meetings,” Marshall said. “It’s the first time something like that has taken place in my career.”
Hanks suddenly resigned her position as DOC commissioner in May of this year, weeks after she was interviewed by New Hampshire State Police investigators concerning Millar’s upcoming trial. The DOC, under Hanks, had not turned over thousands of pages of evidence in the case, including information that could possibly clear Millar.
Millar is accused of putting his knee on Rothe’s back at the end of a violent melee between Rothe and several corrections officers. Millar allegedly kept his knee on Rothe’s back for minutes, though none of the officers in the room originally accused Millar. That did not happen until months later when Corporal Lesley-Ann Cosgro, the officer in charge of the botched room extraction, changed her story when confronted with a grand jury subpoena.
Cosgro was later disciplined by Hanks in the spring of 2024 for violating policy and lying during the Rothe investigation. At the time, Hanks had been told by the Department of Justice not to interview any of the Millar witnesses. The records of the 2024 interview with Hanks were among the evidence that turned up in March of this year. Hanks’ own notes from the 2024 interviews were destroyed. Hanks has claimed she always destroys her handwritten notes since she has poor handwriting.
Millar had complained to Hanks and Marshall that he had been working his shift without help on April 29, 2023, and that the officer in charge, Cosgro, was spending time in the control room on her cell phone. Corrections officers are not permitted to have their personal cell phones on duty, per DOC rules, but it is a policy frequently ignored.
Marshall investigated Millar’s complaints and found that he was assisted by Corrections Officer Josephine McDonough during parts of his shift that day. Marshall could not verify the complaint about Cosgro, as there are no surveillance cameras in the control room.
The trial continues Tuesday.