By NANCY WEST, InDepthNH.org

JACKSON – Police have arrested Brandon Mitchell, 22, of Jackson, for the murder of Esmae Doucette, 23, at the Dana Place Apartments, according to Attorney General John Formella.

At about 7:24 p.m. on Nov. 30, Jackson police were dispatched to a reported gunshot injury at the Dana Place Apartments on Route 16 where they found Doucette suffering from an apparent gunshot wound.

Doucette was transported to Memorial Hospital in North Conway where lifesaving measures were attempted; however, she eventually succumbed to the gunshot wound and was pronounced dead on Dec. 2.

“As a result of the investigation into the circumstances of the shooting of Ms. Doucette, an arrest warrant was obtained charging Mr. Mitchell with one charge of Second Degree Murder, contrary to New Hampshire RSA 630:1-b, I(b). Mr. Mitchell is alleged to have recklessly caused the death of Ms. Doucette under circumstances manifesting an extreme indifference to the value of human life, by shooting Ms. Doucette with a firearm,” Formella said in a news release.

Mitchell is expected to be arraigned on Dec. 5 in Carroll County Superior Court, at a time to be determined.

In 2018 the Conway Daily Sun reported that the Dana Place Inn was being renovated for long-term rental apartments about five miles north of Jackson Village by owner Richard D. Levine.

The Dana Place Inn was owned by Malcolm and Betty Jennings who were murdered on Jan. 16, 1985, and their home near the inn was set on fire.

The murders went unsolved for a time, but authorities eventually said they believed the murders were the work of Glyde Earl Meek, 49, the ex-convict boyfriend of the Jennings’s daughter Page, 21. Their bodies were found 12 days after the Jackson slayings in a burned shack near Gainesville, Fla., in an apparent murder-suicide. But the mystery went on for a long time as their bodies were so badly burned it took experts to piece together what happened and have Page Jennings and Glyde Earl Meek declared dead.