Mistrial declared after New Hampshire jury deadlocks in youth detention center rape case

It was the arrest of Murphy and another former youth counselor in 2019 that thrust allegations of widespread abuse at the facility, now called the Sununu Youth Services Center, into public view. Murphy faces 15 additional charges involving three other boys who were at the facility in the 1990s.

In the current case, jurors heard from Michael Gilpatrick, who previously had testified about the allegations at both Asbury’s criminal trial and at a civil trial involving another former youth center resident. He said he didn’t tell anyone what happened to him at the time because dorm leaders were involved in the assault, and he then spent decades trying to bury his memories.

“Once I was about to accept the fact that it wasn’t my fault and I was able to stop blaming myself, I knew I had to say something,” he testified on Jan. 16.

In closing arguments Tuesday, defense attorney Charles Keefe emphasized inconsistencies between Gilpatrick’s trial testimony and what he told police in 2020 and suggested he has “made it worse with each telling” in hopes of winning money in a separate civil lawsuit.

“When he changes everything that he says happened before and after and even during the alleged assault, he has forfeited the privilege of having you believe him,” Keefe told jurors.

Keefe also contrasted the way Murphy calmly answered “absolutely not” to repeated questions about whether he abused Gilpatrick with the anger Gilpatrick displayed during his testimony.

“He’s told this story many times since 2020, but he still acted like it was the first time he was telling it,” Keefe said. “Prosecutors may suggest to you this means he relives it with each telling. Our common experience tells us that the more we talk about something awful that actually happened, the easier it is.”

Assistant Attorney General Audriana Mekula countered that Gilpatrick came forward “not for money that he doesn’t need or attention that he doesn’t want” but because it was the right thing to do, even if it meant hours talking about sexual assault in a courtroom packed with Murphy’s friends and relatives.

“Do you think he’d willingly do that in front of all these people, these strangers, and feel that raw emotion of the moment, the anger, the sadness and the exhaustion, if this did not really happen?” she said. “He has not healed from what the defendant did to him, but his behavior in that healing process does not mean he’s forfeited his privilege for you to believe him.”

Murphy and another former employee were arrested in July 2019 and charged with sexually assaulting David Meehan, who later became the first of more than 1,100 former residents who have sued the state alleging physical, sexual or emotional abuse spanning six decades. A jury awarded Meehan $38 million in May, though that verdict remains in dispute as the state seeks to reduce the amount to $475,000.

Concurrent with Murphy’s arrest, the attorney general’s office launched a broad investigation into the facility. A total of 11 men have been arrested, though charges against one were dropped due to a lack of evidence, another was found incompetent to stand trial and a third died awaiting trial. Murphy was the fourth to go to trial.

In addition to Asbury, Stanley Watson was convicted Jan. 13 of three counts of aggravated sexual assault against two boys. Another case that ended in a hung jury is expected to be retried later this year.

The Associated Press generally does not identify those who say they were victims of sexual assault unless they have come forward publicly, as Meehan and Gilpatrick have done.

The youth center, which once housed upward of 100 children but now typically serves fewer than a dozen, is named for former Gov. John H. Sununu. Lawmakers have approved closing the facility, which now only houses those accused or convicted of the most serious violent crimes, and replacing it with a much smaller building in a new location.

Holly Ramer, The Associated Press

by Canadian Press

Mistrial declared after New Hampshire jury deadlocks in youth detention center rape case

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