Sheila LaBarre: NH Serial Killer, Part 3

Apr 27

Written By Kristen Seavey

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This is the third in a three part series. Click here for part one and part two.

Sheila LaBarre denied bail

As journalists and investigators tore through Sheila’s past, trying to learn more about her life, she was stuck in her cell waiting to be formally indicted by a grand jury for Kenneth’s murder. After a few months of limbo, her lawyer requested that she be released on bail, but in New Hampshire murder cases (where there is a strong presumption of guilt), there was no chance of release, so she remained incarcerated awaiting trial.

Her animals on the farm, including three older horses, two Shetland ponies, a dog and a number of rabbits, were all put up for adoption by the authorities.

Sheila’s divorce records unsealed

The Portsmouth Herald wanted to learn more about her past relationships. Sheila had been legally married three times—four, if you count her quasi-common-law-marriage to Wilfred LaBarre. Her last divorce was filed in New Hampshire, and because of Sheila’s request, the records had been sealed. She told the judge, back in July of 1997, “By sealing these records, I believe I can truly understand what our state motto means, ‘live free or die.’ To me, the marriage was my death, and my divorce is my freedom.” The Herald petitioned the court to unseal the records and learn the truth about her brief marriage to Wayne Ennis. Sheila argued that they should remain sealed because it was merely an attempt by the Herald to sell newspapers and that the contents would have no bearing on the pending murder charges. The court granted the newspaper’s request over Sheila’s objection, and the public learned about her decades-long history of domestic violence.

Sheila’s tumultuous relationship with Wayne Ennis

Wayne grew up in Manchester parish, Jamaica. After living there for twenty-nine years, he came to America seeking a better life. After living in New England and driving a taxi for a while, he found himself in New Hampshire harvesting crops as a migrant worker, picking apples or blueberries.

In 1994, Wayne was injured in a car accident, and though he was still mobile, the kinks and soreness made him feel miserable. He wanted to be treated by a chiropractor and he ended up at LaBarre’s Clinic.

Sheila was working that day, and while Wayne filled out paperwork, she introduced herself. He found her attractive, and their casual conversation became flirtatious. Sheila recognized his accent right away—she had vacationed in his country in 1989 with Wilfred’s money and without the doctor, and she wrote in her journals that she dreamed of a, quote, “dark-skinned lover from Jamaica”. It was the beginning of his first relationship in the states, and things moved quickly. They soon married, less than a year later, on August 22, 1995.

Though Sheila continued to show affection and tenderness to Wilfred, maintaining a quasi-romantic relationship, he was tolerant of her new husband and even allowed Wayne to live and work on the farm with her.

They were like a family, spending holidays together and catching up over dinner after long days at work. Wayne saw Wilfred as a fatherly figure—he showed nothing but kindness to him and paid Wayne to complete odd-jobs around the property.

But after a brief honeymoon period, he began to learn about Sheila’s darker side.

He would later write letters to the New Hampshire Union Leader, a local newspaper, revealing what had happened between Sheila and him. He wrote about an incident where she chased him through the house and around the property with a handgun. He said, “She had a handgun with her all the time. She pointed the gun at me, shot over my head, and then told me she was going to send me back to Jamaica in a box”.

On some winter nights, she forced him to sleep outside. His bare skin lying on the icy ground, and the air was so cold he could see his breath when he exhaled. He’d shiver himself to sleep.

One night, during a heavy snow, Sheila got into a rage and threw both Wilfred and Wayne into the cold winter air and locked them out of the house. Wilfred headed to a small camper that he kept on the far side of the horse barn, and he offered to share it with Wayne. Wayne was embarrassed about the situation—his wife had caused this predicament—and he knew how small the camper was, so he volunteered to sleep in the barn, finding some clean hay to lay in. “I didn’t know a place on earth so cold,” he thought, but despite his worry, he survived without serious injury until morning.

“I was ashamed to let anyone know I was living like this in America,” he later wrote. But despite the abuse, no matter how vicious she got during a fight, he said “he refused to strike her.”

Wayne remembered one time when she was driving him in her pickup, she told him that “she wished a horse would kick Wilfred in the head and kill him.” She knew what the will had in store for her—she wanted him dead so she could inherit the farm. “You should kill him” she suggested to Wayne. He stammered out a “what?!” and, in response, Sheila jerked the wheel, sending cassettes flying across the truck’s cabin, smashing into the doors. Wayne later said, “When she is like that, I don’t trust her. I didn’t want to refuse her and have her turn on me.”

She asked again, and he continued to hesitate, and she would whip the truck back and forth on the backroads, slamming his head into the passenger window. He thought to himself, “No, I can’t do that. I am not a murderer, and Dr. LaBarre is like a father to me.” He wouldn’t give her the answer she was looking for so she slammed on the brakes and ordered him to get out. She sped away and left Wayne to find his own way home. He realized that if she were capable of hiring someone to kill Wilfred, what was to stop her from doing the same to him?

Another incident happened in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire.

They had gotten into an argument, so Wayne left the room, giving her space, hoping that she would calm down, but when he returned, she provoked him, goading him to hit her. When he refused, she stepped back, collecting herself, and a wicked smile crept across her face. "She ripped the fabric of her clothes and struck herself,” Wayne later wrote. She pulled the shirt collar around her neck taut, using it like a noose, strangling herself until she couldn’t continue. She then dug her nails into her skin, drawing blood. He was dumbstruck—what was this about?

Then she calmly walked over to the phone, dialed a number, and said “Is this the Hampton Police? I need an officer to come. My husband just assaulted me.”

Their eventual divorce wasn’t precipitated by the abuse, though; the final straw was Sheila’s infidelity. Wayne walked in on Sheila having sex with another man (Jimmy Brackett), and he had had enough.

In December of 1996, they filed for divorce, and seven months later, in July of 1997, the divorce was finalized, and Wayne was free.

Jimmy Brackett, lucky to be alive

Just as the relationship with Wayne was ending, a new one was beginning.

James Brackett, who went by “Jimmy”, was, like Wayne, a patient at the chiropractic clinic. He was in his mid-twenties as Sheila was closing in on 40. Jimmy was learning disabled and very shy, and Sheila liked that about him. They began seeing each other in 1996, when Sheila was still married to Wayne. And when Wayne moved out, Jimmy moved in, living with Sheila in the Hampton apartment, which was perched right on top of the chiropractic clinic that Wilfred owned.

Like Wayne, the three of them had a family dynamic—Wilfred showed him extraordinary kindness.

And like Wayne, it didn’t take long for their relationship to take a dark turn with escalating arguments and physical fights. In one incident, after having a bath together, Sheila got out, grabbed a 2-foot-long wooden grill brush that was lying on the nearby sink, and hit him across the face with it, knocking out two of his front teeth, and leaving his mouth bruised and bloody. As he sat, holding his mouth, dumbfounded and in pain, she told him, “I was aiming at your throat”.

She accused him of sleeping around, hurting her animals, and damaging property, but none of it was ever true. She was so passionate about her lies, though, that he started to believe them. Like with Wayne, she would wield a .38 caliber handgun for intimidation, occasionally sending bullets his way. In one particularly dramatic incident, Jimmy fled to the camper on the Epping property and locked her out. She retrieved an axe and started to hack her way through the thin sheet metal shell. Jimmy was trapped. He searched for an exit when he looked up and saw the camper’s roof vent. He shimmied up through the narrow opening, stood on top of the camper, picked a side furthest from Sheila, leapt from the roof, and fled on foot. Sheila pursued him, but he was faster. With adrenaline and fear pumping through his veins, he escaped into the thick woods on the property.

Another time, Sheila landed herself in legal hot water. Jimmy went to the hospital seeking treatment for a wound, but before the doctor would stitch him up, he asked him how he had sustained the injuries. After he told him that his girlfriend had attacked him with a pair of scissors, explaining the 2-inch gash to his forehead and the damage to his ear, the doctor called the Hampton police. An officer quickly arrived, took some photos, and took a statement from Jimmy, after which the doctor treated his wounds, stitched him up, and gave him a tetanus shot.

A few hours prior, in the middle of the night, around 4:30AM, Sheila and Jimmy were rolling around their apartment above the chiropractic office, fighting with weapons. Jimmy had a folding knife and Sheila some pruning sheers. She was injured, too—a cut on her palm and her finger.

The officer asked Jimmy to come by the station when he was done at the hospital. Before he left, he asked Jimmy if he still had the knife with him and he turned it over.

The officer headed over to the apartment to get a statement from Sheila. She claimed that Jimmy had attacked her with the folding knife and that she had defended herself with scissors. He put her under arrest and brought her back to the station. Once she got to the station she explained that in addition to the wounds she had explained, her private parts were also wounded. When she started to disrobe to show the officer, he said “that’s not necessary.” He left the room, getting a female officer to assist, but when Sheila found out that he wouldn’t be the one behind the camera, she changed her mind, saying she no longer wanted to be photographed.

They charged her with ‘second degree assault,’ booked her, and held her until later that afternoon when she would be arraigned.

Jimmy, similarly, was arrested and charged, and held at the police station.

That afternoon, at the courthouse, Sheila and Jimmy faced judge Francis Fraiser, where he read them each their charges. They both pled not guilty.

Sheila was already widely known by court staff as polite, prepared, and professional—one of the best pro se litigants they had ever encountered. But this time, Sheila was unhinged. She yelled and talked over Judge Francis during Jimmy’s arraignment, and he ordered her to be removed from the courtroom. The officer who had brought her to the courthouse took her downstairs to a small room. And as she was being removed, she bellowed “I’m bleeding from the vagina and they won’t help me!”

They called an ambulance to treat her, but she refused them—she said, she was just having her period. She accepted a maxi-pad from a court employee, and settled down.

The judge was bewildered. He held her at a mental institution for observation for three days before he would consider bail.

She returned to face the judge with her attorney. He presented a psychological exam that Sheila was a danger neither to herself nor others, and that she was competent to assist in her own legal defense. She had returned to her charming self, and the judge granted her bail, but ordered her to stay 500 feet from Jimmy.

Prosecutors tried to proceed with their case, but neither Jimmy nor Sheila would cooperate, so they abandoned the charges. A few years later, Sheila petitioned to have the charges expunged from their respective criminal records, and the same judge (Francis Fraiser) approved the request.

The cycle of abuse and reconciliation extended even to the legal system.

James left Sheila many times, but he always came back. In 2002, James finally steeled his resolve to leave Sheila. He later said, “I was so desperate to leave that I hitchhiked through a blizzard to a homeless shelter in Portsmouth.” He feared that if he had stayed, he would have been killed.

He recalled that she had accused him of being a pedophile, and in retrospect, believed that if he had confessed, placating her, it would have been his death sentence.

The vanity plate on the back of Jimmy Brackett’s car reads “I’M ALIVE”. Many years later, he said that he was lucky to be alive and knew full well, he could’ve have been another victim. From 1996 to 2002, Jimmy survived Sheila LaBarre.

The Insanity Plea

Sheila, wearing a tan jumpsuit, waited in her cell for nearly two years anticipating her trial. She was ready to escape the mundane prison routine and the women who abused her. Sheila hated her cellmate—she complained to her sister that she would scoff and tease her for using the toilet. In one of the court hearings, she complained to the judge that she was suffering from skin problems because she had no control over the temperature of the water during her showers, and that she needed a prescription moisturizer to heal her skin. Life had changed dramatically since her days on the farm with her animals.

In October of 2007, Sheila’s lawyers successfully motioned to have her declared indigent by the court, which meant that the state would be picking up the cost of Sheila’s legal defense. Her assets were frozen while the (order vacating her inheritance), and (the wrongful death lawsuit from the Countie family) were resolved.

The trial was scheduled to begin in March of 2008, but in February, Sheila’s legal team made a bombshell announcement: she essentially admitted that she had murdered Kenneth Countie and Michael Deloge, but claimed that she was “not guilty by reason of insanity.” Up until this point, the state hadn’t even charged her with Michael’s murder.

Rather than admitting her guilt outright, she could have asked for a bifurcated trial (so-called because it would be done in two separate phases): in the first, they would presume that she was sane and consider her guilt in the murder of Kenneth Countie; and in the second trial, they would consider only the question of her sanity. There was some speculation by legal pundits that her team avoided this because if the same jury were utilized in both trials, they might find it difficult to find someone guilty and then immediately afterward, find them not guilty by reason of insanity.

After the February hearing, her attorney, Jeffrey Denner, said, “Sheila LaBarre is a deeply sick individual. It is our belief that she could not control her behavior and looked at the world through a different lens. We have felt from the beginning that this was a very, sick individual who needs help”.

The families of Kenneth and Michael were aghast that she might be able to escape responsibility. But even if Sheila were successful, she would likely be committed to a secure psychiatric unit and would not be set free for decades—perhaps the rest of her life. Though it is not hard to imagine a scenario where she would become a model patient and win over her doctors and earn her eventual release…

The insanity plea is rare: it is used in less than 1% of criminal cases, and its success rate is about 1 in 4. In an insanity trial, it is the burden of the defense to prove that the defendant was insane—they are presumed to be sane until proven otherwise.

In preparation for trial, the defense requested, as part of discovery, the 330 microcassettes that were taken as evidence by investigators from Sheila’s residences. She had been recording herself and others starting in 1990, for the following 15 years, and the cassettes contained over a thousand hours of audio.

The prosecution, meanwhile, had their expert witness, forensic psychologist, Albert Drukteinis (druck TEEN iss) interview Sheila again and examine all of the evidence that they had gathered in preparation for trial.

In early May of 2008, the trial that would decide Sheila’s fate began. After a jury of 12 with 6 alternates were empaneled, they took a field trip to the Epping farm to take a look around, and Sheila joined the jury for the trip.

The defense would go first in the trial, and during their opening statements, they laid out their story for the jury. Attorney Brad Bailey said, quote, “this is a woman who sincerely believes she has been told by God himself to return to Earth to ‘find the reason why’—a woman who believes she is an angel, a spirit walking among the living, who has returned to Earth for a special purpose.” (He was referring to the suicide attempt that Sheila had made during her relationship with Ronnie Jennings, after which she remained in a coma for 8 days). He explained that Sheila had discovered in the years that followed, her purpose: she was to rid the world of pedophiles. She believed that being a notary public gave her special powers and allowed her to judge and enact punishment, including executions. She suffered from paranoia, believing that the people in the woods near her house were, quote, “out to get her,” and that she had been assaulted by ghosts who haunted the farmhouse.

The prosecution described her as, quote, “crude, manipulative, cruel, and vindictive”; someone who lashed out violently at the men she dated. Assistant Attorney General Ann Rice said that her accusations about child sex abuse were a way to humiliate the men she killed. She said it was all part and parcel of Sheila’s “need to control, dominate, and humiliate” them.

The defense called Sheila’s sister to the stand, and she recalled for the jury, her nickname for her sister, “Crazy Sheila”, for her erratic behavior towards men and her cackling laugh.

Malcolm Rogers, the defense’s expert witness and forensic psychologist, testified, and he said that he believed Sheila was insane when she killed Kenny and Michael. He explained that her actions were caused by her mental illness, which he had diagnosed as a delusional disorder. Her obsession with pedophilia was a symptom of the disorder; he said, “I think that her experiences as a child didn’t cause the disorder, but contributed to the form that the delusion has taken.” Another symptom, he explained, was her paranoia, which was evident for years and began to escalate in the years leading up to the murders.

The defense played many of Sheila’s recordings for the jury. In one, she interrogated Michael Deloge about molesting young girls, accusing him of being a pedophile and describing the sexual acts that she believed he performed. She made similar allegations in a recording of her and Kenneth. Malcolm gave context for the recordings, saying that she made those tapes to, quote, “document the wrongs that had been done to her, but there was virtually no self-reflection in her role.”

In another tape, Sheila said that “God told her, you can’t remain [here in heaven]—you must return and you must find the reason why.” Malcolm said that her grandiose manner of speech in the recordings was evidence of her belief that she was ordained by a higher power to carry out a special mission. He continued, “Many of the ideas seem so outlandish that it makes you wonder if she actually believes them, [but] my interpretation in listening to the tapes is that she does."

Her belief that all of the men in her life were pedophiles and homosexual was part of her delusion, and after playing a recording of her saying “I believe all pedophiles should be shot on sight; I wish President Bush would enact that into law,” he said that “what is most significant is that Sheila acts [in a way that is consistent] with her delusional beliefs. It’s one of the ways you can determine if someone believes [their own delusion] or not.”

The defense had former tenants of Sheila testify about their experience vacating a property that they were renting from her. They said that she had entered their apartment in the days leading up to their move, and had done some bizarre and terrifying things: she wrote on their wall, “vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord”; she turned on all of the gas burners on the range and left the oven door open with the gas running; she poured bleach in their aquarium, killing their pet fish; she turned on every light and shattered a glass door, leaving the thousands of glass pieces on the floor when she left.

They called Jimmy Brackett to the stand to testify about the crazy behavior he witnessed and even the chief of police of Epping, to explain that he had fielded at least 150 calls over the years involving her.

They produced a notebook of Sheila’s that had a bible verse written on it: Daniel 3, which reads,

“Your Majesty has issued a decree that everyone who hears the sound of the horn, flute, or harp … must fall down and worship the image of gold, and that whoever does not … will be thrown into a blazing furnace.”

They connected it to her method of disposing of Kenneth’s and Michael’s bodies: incinerating them in burn piles on her property using diesel fuel as an accelerant.

The prosecution focused on passages that showed her as scheming: one page had the word “options” written at the bottom with a list of possibilities for why someone might disappear: “he got a ride to his ma” or “he went off with someone.”

Finally, the time had come for the state to present their expert witness. Albert told the jury that after reviewing more than 8,000 pages in the case file and interviewing her three times, for a total of about 12 hours, that he believed she was sane when she killed Kenneth and Michael. He explained that she had severe mood disorders which explained her episodes of rage, her grandiosity, and her suicidal thoughts. He said that she likely had several personality disorders that explained her paranoia and her lack of empathy for others. He said that at times she might have psychotic episodes, where she would hear voices, see visions, or have delusional thoughts. But he said despite these disorders, quote, “she is not psychotic all the time, and not everything that she does is psychotic.” He said that she was far more functional than psychotic people he had treated, and that she didn’t present as psychotic during their hours of interviews. He said, quote, “she answered questions well and she tried to explain away evidence that made her look bad” and that is not what he sees in a person who is psychotic.

The prosecution played Sheila’s account of what had happened to Kenneth, an invention of hers, they believed, to minimize her guilt and manipulate the legal system. She said that they went to sleep in the same bed, and she woke in the morning to Kenny choking her—his hands around her throat. She wriggled away and started yelling at him, telling him that he was only with her to steal money from her to support his drug habit. They argued, then fought, and ended up in the bathroom, where Kenny slipped in the tub and struck his head. She said through sobs, “he just stared up at me. He didn’t move. I started CPR on him. I was screaming his name. I tried everything.” But despite her efforts, Kenny succumbed to his accidental injuries.

They called her neighbor, Michelle Bennett, to the stand to explain an incident where Sheila was burning something on the property. She told Michelle, “Don’t mind the smell. I’m burning my garbage.” That same night, Sheila described, in detail, how she would kill someone. The prosecution recalled a statement Sheila had made: “I know my law—burning a body is just a misdemeanor.”

When Jimmy Brackett was on the stand, he took the court back to the incident that landed him in the hospital with 4 stitches from Sheila’s attack with the pruning shears. He testified that after Sheila was granted bail, she told him that the bizarre tantrum that she threw during the arraignment hearing was calculated—an effort to, in her words, “play the system.”

Albert said that despite these mental illnesses, there was not enough evidence to show a mental illness caused Sheila to commit her crimes.

In a trial replete with examples of crazy behavior, it was ultimately up to the jury to decide whether she was a manipulative and sadistic killer, or, legally insane, simply acting in a way that was consistent with her delusion of being an ‘avenging angel’.

After more than 40 witnesses and five weeks of testimony, the jury took two days and 13 hours, before they returned to the courtroom. When they filed back in, the judge asked them if they rendered a unanimous verdict. The foreman said, “we have, your honor.” The judge then asked, “How do you find the defendant? Guilty, or, not guilty by reason of insanity?” The jury foreman paused and said, “Guilty, your honor.”

Her defense attorney, Jeffrey Denner, later said, "when the verdict was read, she collapsed in my arms, saying, ‘Thank God, they know I’m sane!’ She wanted to be sane, but she was the craziest person I ever met.”

The judge sentenced Sheila to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Was Sheila A Serial Killer?

Just before the trial began, it was revealed to the public in a preliminary hearing that investigators had discovered, in their initial search of the Epping farm, several severed toes that belonged to neither Kenny nor Michael.

They didn’t bring it up during the insanity trial, and the information lay dormant for 4 years, when they appealed to the public for help in identifying the unknown man.

Near the time of Sheila’s arrest, she had been seen entertaining a man with a thick Irish accent at her favorite date spot, Ashworth by the Sea in Hampton (the same spot that she and Kenny met for the first time). The story, repeated by Michele Bennett, Sheila’s Epping neighbor, was that during their date, the Irishman pleaded with another restaurant-goer for help, asking them to call the police—that he was afraid she would hurt him. The patron obliged and called the Hampton police, but evidently nothing was done.

No one but Sheila knew the man’s name, and she mentioned it herself during one of her encounters with police at the Epping farmhouse. She said, “Mr. Departee, an Irish ‘nut’, had been threatening her.”

Could the toes belong to this mystery Irishman?

Even at the time of this recording, 16 years after the discovery of the toes, the victim has not been identified.

There were hundreds of hours of recorded calls of Sheila talking to men on chat lines, like she did with Kenny. How many others did she meet in person? Detectives thought this might have been a way that Sheila was searching for new victims. They asked the public for help in identifying other men who stayed with Sheila over the years. Several people came forward with descriptions and limited information, but they didn’t know their current whereabouts.

Investigators believed that there might even be others, of whom they found no trace. Detective Richard Cote said, “If she met a homeless guy in New York City and took him home and killed him, we would never know. She was using every and all means of disposal”.

Epping faces a civil lawsuit from Kenneth’s family

Though Sheila had been held responsible for Kenny and Michael’s murders, Carolynn believed that her son’s death could have been prevented.

She filed a wrongful death lawsuit in March of 2009 against the town of Epping, and four individual officers in the Epping Police Department. She had pleaded with the police for help and told reporters that, “the police … saw his condition at Walmart and knew he wasn’t OK.” The officers had seen Kenneth at the Epping farmhouse two weeks prior and could see how much his condition had deteriorated when they saw him, ashen and injured, in the wheelchair in the aisles of the store.

The attorney representing the defendants, employed by the town (through their insurance policy), said that discretionary decisions the officers made were immune from a personal liability lawsuit. The attorney was distinguishing between two categories of responsibility: discretionary and ministerial. Ministerial duties are actions the officer is required to perform in a particular way, set out by law, by policy, or by a superior. For example, it is an officer’s duty to stop at a motor vehicle accident and render aid. The only exception would be if they did their discretionary duties in a “wanton or reckless manner.”

They said, more specifically, that their decision not to take either Sheila or Kenneth into custody during or after the incident at Walmart was discretionary. They pointed to a state domestic violence law that said officers can arrest a person for abuse without a warrant if they find probable cause, and it was up to the officers to make that discretionary judgment at Walmart.

As part of the normal course that a civil suit takes, the town’s attorney filed a motion to dismiss it. Rockingham County Superior Court Judge Kenneth McHugh denied the motion, ruling that the suit had merit. The judge said, “if Carolynn’s facts were true, a reasonable juror could find that the town of Epping, by the inaction of its officers, enabled Sheila LaBarre to detain, abuse, and eventually murder Kenneth. The town had a statutory duty to protect Countie from further abuse once officers encountered him in Walmart. Here, the officers saw evidence of abuse right in front of them and failed to intervene.”

Three months after the suit was filed, the first blow to Carolynn’s case came, when the same judge dismissed the town of Epping from the suit, agreeing with their attorneys that because of a (rather confusing) state law, the municipality was immune to suits arising from an officer’s (potentially negligent) actions. That left the 4 individual officers as the remaining defendants.

Another blow to her case came when the two superior officers, neither of whom were present at Walmart, were also dismissed from the suit. The two remaining defendants were Richard Cote and Sean Gallagher.

Finally, in October of 2010, after a year-and-a-half of legal arguments, Judge Kenneth McHugh dealt the lawsuit its final blow. In his decision, he wrote, “there was no evidence that the officers had acted in bad faith. [There was] no evidence that Richard or Sean did anything dishonest or intentional that led to Countie’s murder.” For the lawsuit to go to trial, there must be an allegation of “intentional conduct, dishonest purpose, furtive design, or ill will,” which can be neatly summarized as “bad faith” actions.

The lawsuit that Kenneth’s estate had filed against Sheila, however, had succeeded. A summary judgment of $1 million had been awarded, but there were a lot of people in line to get paid from Sheila’s remaining assets. Carolynn explained that even if it was paid, she didn’t stand to benefit because she wasn’t a part of Kenneth’s estate. She said, “I wasn’t in it for the money. I was in it for my son because it cost him. It cost him with his life.”

Farmhouse Auction

On the early spring morning of April 28, 2009, a crowd of 75 waited to see who would bid on the once-lavish farmhouse of Sheila LaBarre. The grass was in desperate need of mowing; the white paint on the house’s exterior was cracked and peeling; most of the windows were boarded up with plywood, covering up damage done from vandalism. The home warped and bowed in neglect. It would need a lot to repair, and whoever bought it would have to face another grim reality: at least two men were murdered there and turned to ash in the front yard.

Carolynn Lodge, who doubted anyone would bid on the property, waited along with the rest of the group. Her wish was to see the house demolished and the land left alone. She hoped that the new owner would permit Kenneth’s memorial shrine to remain at the edge of the property, honoring the past, but allowing the community to heal and move forward.

The people who were there to bid had their paddles ready.

Auctioneer James St. Jean called out the numbers in a lightning cadence. Only a handful of people in the crowd were actually there to bid, one of whom was Brant Hardy, a local accountant, bidding on behalf of the Harvey family who once owned the home. The family wanted to take back their farm and restore the land. He thought he would be unopposed, but he found himself in a bidding war with a small-framed woman in a red coat. Next to her was a man wearing a hat covering most of his salt-and-pepper hair. The couple looked put-together. After the price rapidly rose to $400,000, it was down to just the two remaining bidders.

The price rose bit by bit. There was some headroom—the appraisal of the property had come in at $860,000.

Things slowed down as the bidding rose to $550,000.

Bonnie Merouth, a neighbor who lived down the street from the farmhouse, said, “My wish for the property is simple. This land has seen so many hellacious things, I hope the new owner will let it have peace”.

A few more bids were made when James St. Jean said, “going once… going twice… sold, for $600,000” to the lady in red.

There was a collective sigh from the crowd when the gavel came down. The crack of it striking the sounding block released tension from the crowd—another chapter had ended.

If you have any information about other possible victims of Sheila LaBarre, please contact the Epping Police at (603) 679-5122.

Click here for part one and part two.

This text has been adapted from the Murder, She Told podcast episode, NH Serial Killer: Sheila LaBarre, Part 3. To hear the full story, find Murder, She Told on your favorite podcast platform.

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Sheila LaBarre, 39 years old, with her mother, Ruby Bailey (2000)

Kevin Flynn, author of “Wicked Intentions”

Sheila LaBarre (left), and her defense attorney, Jeffrey Denner (right), May 2008

Sheila LaBarre’s defense attorney, Jeffrey Denner (right), May 2008

Prosecutor James Brofetti in Sheila LaBarre’s insanity trial, May 2008

Carolynn Lodge, Kenneth Countie’s mother, Sheila LaBarre trial

Richard Cote, Epping PD, defendant in Carolynn Lodge’s wrongful death civil lawsuit

Sean Gallagher, Epping PD, defendant in Carolynn Lodge’s wrongful death civil lawsuit

70 Red Oak Hill Ln, Epping, NH, Sheila LaBarre’s farmhouse

70 Red Oak Hill Ln, Epping, NH, Sheila LaBarre’s farmhouse, condition as it was being auctioned

Sources For This Episode

Newspaper articles

Various articles from Bangor Daily News, New Hampshire Union Leader, Portsmouth Herald, Rutland Daily Herald, The Bennington Banner, The Boston Globe, and The Brattleboro Reformer, here.

Written by various authors including Adam Leech, Clare Trapasso, Clynton Namuo, David Tirrell-Wysocki, Elizabeth Dinan, Emily Aronson, Garry Rayno, Gina Carbone, James Kimble, Jason Schreiber, Karen Dandurant, Kathleen Burge, Kathryn Marchocki, Lara Bricker, Mark Hayward, Nancy West, Russ Choma, Sally Jacobs, Scott Brooks, Toby Henry, and Trent Spiner.

Books

Wicked Intentions, Kevin Flynn, published 2008 by New Horizon Press

Online articles

'Obituary of Wildred Joseph LaBarre' (Lane Memorial Library (Hampton, NH)), 12/7/2000, no author credited

'Murder Suspect Found in Revere' (The Sun (Westford, MA)), 4/3/2006, by Matt Murphy

'Kenneth M. Countie (obituary)' (Legacy.com), 4/6/2006, no author credited

'Michael Deloge (obituary)' (Legacy.com), 3/1/2008, no author credited

'Murderer Sheila LaBarre's farm auctioned for 600K' (Seacoast Online (Portsmouth, NH)), 5/28/2009, by Lara Bricker

'State of New Hampshire vs. Sheila K. LaBarre' (Justia US Law (Mountainview, CA)), 1/13/2010, no author credited

'Mystery toes may be the sole link…' (Daily News (New York, NY)), 7/5/2012, by Larry McShane

'The Unidentified Toes' (The Sheila LaBarre Murder Case), 12/3/2012, by Steven Robert

'An Obsession with Pedophiles' (The Sheila LaBarre Murder Case ), 12/3/2012, by Steven Robert