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Post by Graveyardbride on Jul 19, 2014 10:05:05 GMT -5
Girl’s Unsolved Murder Haunts New Hampshire Town Three Years LaterAn 11-year-old New Hampshire girl whose disappearance prompted a massive search before her body was found lodged against a dam in the Connecticut River remains a haunting presence in her small rural town. Celina Cass was last seen hunched over a computer in her family’s apartment in West Stewartstown on July 25, 2011. Three years later, no one has been charged with her murder.
So far as is known, there are no public memorial services planned to commemorate the third anniversary of Celina’s death and resident Shannon Towle hopes it remains that way. She complained that previous anniversaries have attracted hordes of media and served only to upset children still struggling to cope with the fact that the security of their town has been shattered. “The kids who were her close friends are still dealing with this,” said Towle, whose family owns the gas station and convenience store across from the apartment where Celina lived. She added that news of an arrest would be cause for celebration. Otherwise, she claimed, “it just kind of rubs it in your face that whoever did this is still out and about.”
Celina was reported missing July 26 and a trickle of investigators soon became dozens. They turned the town’s elementary school into a barracks and combed the woods and remote roads. Neighbors stood along the main drag handing out fliers bearing the girl’s picture and description a stone’s throw from the cordoned-off apartment building.
Hope faded to grief a week later when divers discovered her submerged body less than a quarter mile from her home.
The case has yet to be added to the long list of unsolved murder cases investigated by the state’s cold case unit. “The initial team, including myself, continues to work on this,” said prosecutor Jane Young, who heads the criminal bureau for the attorney general’s office. “There has not been a period of time when it’s been dormant or there haven’t been leads to investigate. When there is sufficient evidence to prove a case against an individual or individuals beyond a reasonable doubt for Celina’s murder, an arrest will occur.”
At the time of her disappearance, Celina lived with her 13-year-old sister, her mother, Luisia Cass, her stepfather, Wendell Noyes, and 22-year-old Kevin Mullaney – the son of one of Luisia’s former boyfriends.
Mullaney and Noyes were subpoenaed to testify at grand jury proceedings in the case. Court documents show that Noyes had a history of psychiatric issues and was declared unfit to stand trial in a 2003 case in which he was charged with breaking into an ex-girlfriend’s home and threatening her. Mullaney is serving two to six years for receiving stolen property, reckless conduct and being a felon in possession of a handgun for crimes unrelated to the subject case.
Celina’s mother and Noyes did not return recent calls to their phone numbers listed in public records. Cass separated from Noyes soon after her daughter’s body was recovered.
The home where Celina was last seen alive was heavily damaged by fire in December and will likely be razed.
“We pray about it and talk about it and keep her alive by talking about her,” said Kirsten Lyons, a school nurse who spoke at Celina’s memorial service about the “happy, loving girl with a beautiful smile.” Lyons noted there is widespread frustration that the case has not been solved. “We recently had a case of someone grave-robbing in Colebrook and it was solved in two weeks. You wonder how that can be so quickly resolved when we have the death of a young girl coming up on three years and it’s still not solved.”Sources: Associated Press, July 19, 2014; and The Stewartstown Police Department.
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Post by natalie on Jul 21, 2014 8:39:31 GMT -5
Wow, some winner mom picked up, and that adopted son of hers is no better. Seems that boyfriend has some history of violence, wonder if he is involved.
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Post by Graveyardbride on Dec 1, 2020 21:46:08 GMT -5
Stepfather Charged with Girl’s Murder, Deemed IncompetentThe night of July 25, 2011, when Celina Cass disappeared from her family’s apartment in West Stewartstown, a small New Hampshire community just a mile from the Canadian border, she and her mother watched television. Then the 11-year-old went up to bed and Louisa Noyes (above) never saw her daughter again.
“What did I ever do wrong or my kids do wrong to have that done?” the distraught woman asked rhetorically. “To have someone tell you your child is gone and never coming home.”
How the young girl got out of the apartment and into the Connecticut River, where her body was found a week later, has mystified investigators since it happened, although Wendell Noyes, Celina’s stepfather, was a suspect from the beginning, partially because of his bizarre behavior: At one point, while local TV cameras were filming, Noyes jumped from the steps of his front porch, crawled on the ground and pretended to toss a hand grenade.
In the summer of 2016, five years after Celina’s death, Noyes, 52, was arrested and charged with the murder. Although many, including the girl’s family, felt this was a long time coming, Kirsten Wilson, a former senior assistant attorney general, explained, “It is not uncommon to have a case open that long to go unsolved, but to have charges come forward is a testament to both the attorney general’s office and the state police. [It’s] a sigh of relief for the North Country, for the small town she was from, for Celina’s family.” When questioned back in 2011, Wendell Noyes insisted he had nothing to do with his stepdaughter’s disappearance. “I care,” he told investigators. “And I’d like to know who …. Who’s responsible? Who killed her? Somebody killed her. I haven’t got a clue. And I can search you right in the eyes and tell you the truth. I haven’t got a clue.”
On the night of Celina’s disappearance, Eunice Noyes, Wendell’s mother, was also sleeping upstarts and like her daughter-in-law, heard nothing. However, she admitted to authorities that her son had mental health issues.
Noyes’s psychiatric problems did not improve and in December 2015, he was involuntarily committed to the New Hampshire Hospital in Concord. Following six months of treatment with what his psychiatrist described as “reasonably high doses of antipsychotic medications, the intensity of his psychotic symptoms improved, but the paranoid and delusional thinking did not.”
While it was the doctor’s opinion that sitting through a trial could worsen the defendant’s psychotic symptoms, he agreed the man’s mental illness created “a potentially serious likelihood of danger to others.” He also noted there were numerous instances documented in the records from 2004 through 2015 in which the patient had threatened and acted aggressively toward others.
Unfortunately, in March 2017, Judge Albert Drukteinis ruled that Noyes (above) lacked the competence to stand trial and determined his competency could not be restored. In addition to finding Noyes mentally incompetent, the court also unsealed the arrest affidavit, revealing previously unknown information concerning the murder of Celina Cass. Not only was there evidence of sexual assault, she was wrapped in a comforter and blanket tied with twine and her body had been weighted with a 5-pound sandbag.
Upon investigation, similar sandbags were discovered in the bed of a truck belonging to Noyes, and the girl’s panties and pajama bottoms were found in the vehicle of a family friend, Keith Mullaney.
“Certainly, we looked at whether there was somebody else that participated in this murder,” Assistant Attorney General Jane Young said. “That was part of the five-plus years it took us to rule out – I’m sure you are all aware there was another individual who lived in that house. There were lots of leads that were developed in this case.”
Had the case proceeded to trial, attorneys representing Noyes were set to point the finger at Kevin Mullaney, who was 22 in 2011. According to the lawyers, not only were Celina’s panties and pajama bottoms found stuffed inside a tire in the young man’s truck, semen discovered on a pair of muddy boxer shorts from a clothes hamper inside the apartment contained Mullaney’s DNA.
Prosecutors believe Noyes planted the incriminating items in the truck to frame Mullaney for the murder, begging the question: Is Wendell Noyes as “incompetent” as he would have people believe? At the time Noyes was arrested, Mullaney was serving time on unrelated weapons charges.
At this point, it seems unlikely his treating doctors will release Noyes, but should he be found competent to stand trial at some future date, the murder charge could be reinstated. Sources: Ella Nilsen, The Concord Monitor, February 28, 2017; The Associated Press, February 28, 2017; Siobhan Lopez, WMUR, February 17, 2017; and Jean Mackin and Amy Coveno, WMUR, June 21, 2016.
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Post by jason on Dec 3, 2020 13:11:35 GMT -5
Damn, that's an UGLY woman!
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Post by catherine on Dec 5, 2020 0:28:20 GMT -5
Damn, that's an UGLY woman! When we go to Maine on our Dark Shadows trips, I've noticed there are a LOT of ugly, white trashy people with stringy hair, dirty clothing and bad teeth -- much worse than the white trash in the South. At least trashy white people down here comb their hair, usually wear clean clothes and very few have rotten teeth.
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Post by catherine on Dec 5, 2020 0:31:59 GMT -5
That son-of-a-bitch isn't mentally incompetent, he's just putting on an act to get away with raping and killing that little girl and New Hampshire being full of bleeding heart liberals, he's getting away with it.
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Post by pat on Apr 1, 2021 18:19:31 GMT -5
For some unknown reason, I've been thinking about this case. If there are any updates, specifically if some shrink figures out this POS Noyes is faking it, please let us know.
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Post by pat on Sept 13, 2021 9:58:11 GMT -5
Have there been any updates on this faker's competency? Once a person is hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital, they can pretend to be incompetent for the rest of their lives.
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Post by snowfairy on May 14, 2022 14:43:51 GMT -5
I've just spent hours reading the articles in this category and most of them are outstanding. I also find some of the comments interesting, in particular those of catherine, madeline and jason.
If there have been any updates in this case, I'd really like to know, so if our two writers/researchers find out anything more, please post it.
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Post by JoannaL on May 14, 2022 19:47:53 GMT -5
If there have been any updates in this case, I'd really like to know, so if our two writers/researchers find out anything more, please post it. The only update is that the state of New Hampshire is guarding the killer’s whereabouts, refusing to say if he’s still an inpatient at the state hospital in Concord or if he’s been moved to some other facility.
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