Pod Insights Dark Downeast The Murder of Denise Robert (New Hampshire) About this episode She was out on her usual Sunday night walk when an unknown killer pulled up and shot her, leaving her mortally wounded in the street of what locals considered a safe neighborhood. Why someone would target Denise Robert and take her life still doesn’t make any sense to her family and those who knew her best, even 10 years later.
This case is not short on theories. Police have fielded questions about everything from a possible gang initiation to serial killers, but we still don’t know what really happened.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Kylie Low? Every case starts somewhere. A small town, a missing persons report, a family asking the same questions over and over. But sometimes a story reaches beyond its own community. Its impact extends further, calling for more attention, more conversation, and a wider audience. That's what Crime Junkie does every Monday. Ashley Flowers and Brett Prewat cover the cases you can't stop thinking about, from unsolved murders to missing people to investigations that still need answers. Because every new person who hears the story is another chance to uncover the truth. Listen to Crime Junkie every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts.
0:45 Kylie Low? She was on her usual Sunday night walk when an unknown killer pulled up and shot her, leaving her mortally wounded in the street of what locals considered a safe neighborhood. Why someone would target Denise Robert and take her life still doesn't make any sense to her family and those who knew her best, even 10 years later. This case is not short on theories. Police have fielded questions about everything from possible gang initiation to serial killers. But we still don't know what really happened. I'm Kylie Low, and this is the case of Denise Robert, on Dark Down East.
1:36 Kylie Low? It was around 9:00 PM on Sunday night, August 30, 2015, when the 911 call came in to police in Manchester, New Hampshire. The caller reported that there was a woman in the road in the area of Ray and Carpenter Streets, a neighborhood in the city's North End. According to reporting by Mark Hayward for the New Hampshire Union Leader, the woman was deceased on arrival of law enforcement. And from the beginning, officers realized they weren't dealing with a medical episode or some other innocuous unattended death. The woman had an injury consistent with at least one gunshot wound. The victim didn't have any identification on her at the time.
2:18 Kylie Low? However, as police secured the area in front of 313 Ray Street to the corner of Carpenter Street and the perimeter of Ray Street with crime scene tape, they found a key fob for a car near the woman's body. Searching the surrounding neighborhood, police located its respective vehicle in the parking lot of Brookside Congregational Church. It was a copper-colored Volvo S90 with dealer plates on it at the time, so the registration wasn't much help. But inside on the floor, police located a purse. It belonged to 62-year-old Denise Robert. Sometime around 3:00 a.m., Denise's brother, Tom Robert, heard a knock at his front door. He peeked out the window to see a woman and two men wearing police jerseys.
3:02 Kylie Low? They told Tom the news that his older sister, the firstborn child in a family of 12 kids, had been found dead. Her death would later be ruled a homicide. As the oldest child and firstborn daughter of a large family, Denise Robert stepped into a caretaker role alongside her brother Tom from an early age.
3:26 Speaker 01 I'm one of the older ones. The mission of the older ones was to help raise the younger ones. Denise was in front of that.
3:36 Kylie Low? On top of helping her parents care for the younger kids, Denise got her first job at 14 years old, working at the New England staple Dunkin' Donuts. She'd always been independent and became exceptionally career-focused as she got older. For 30 years, Denise worked as an advertising sales rep for a group of local newspapers, including the New Hampshire Union Leader. Everyone who knew Denise, from clients to coworkers, friends, and family, they all spoke of her work ethic. Denise's brother, John Robert, remembers a conversation he had with an editor at one of the papers about his sister.
4:12 Speaker 02 She was very important at the newspapers that she worked at. Before she worked for the Union Leader, she worked at a string of weekly newspapers. And I was talking to the editor, and she was responsible for 70% of the ads in those newspapers. So she was the one really paying the bills over there. So I was surprised to hear that number, but she was. And she could walk into the office at 10:00 p.m. Sunday night and work till 2:00. She had her own schedule and her own routine, so.
4:44 Speaker 01 She used the full day. She would take the time she needed to accomplish what she needed to accomplish. It could be any time.
4:55 Kylie Low? Between work and exercise, her other passion, Denise didn't have much downtime for relationships and dating, and it may not have been a priority for her based on what Tom knows about Denise's values and their upbringing.
5:09 Speaker 01 My dad, his father immigrated from Canada. My mother came from an old French family. They were brought up, and we were brought up with old fashioned perspectives. I believe Denise incorporated a lot of that. In some ways, she didn't. I can't tell you how she parsed it in her own mind, but she wasn't really a big dater.
5:37 Kylie Low? Denise was described as outgoing but unassuming, very kind and endearing. The term quirky was used a few times. When she wasn't at a client meeting trying to sell newspaper ads to local businesses, Denise was exercising whenever she could get it in. She was a member at Executive Health Club in Manchester and was often the last person out the door as they locked up behind her.
6:01 Speaker 02 She could be outrunning at like 3 a.m. She was always late, the last person getting out of the gym before it closed. So she was very dedicated to, you know, being in shape and I guess it helped her with her work, right? To be clear minded and she felt her best, she could be her best at work.
6:23 Kylie Low? According to Denise's family, also part of her fitness regimen was a Sunday night walk in the North End. She'd been doing it for years. Denise was familiar with the neighborhood because she grew up there on Sagamore Street. It didn't make any logical sense to Denise's family that their sister, who had no known enemies to speak of, would be the target of a killer for any reason. Her lifestyle, as far as they knew, just didn't align. But a random killing in the North End? That didn't compute either. Reporting in the union leader described Ray Street as affluent, with stately colonial homes owned by doctors, lawyers, and business owners. Residents believed that violent crime, especially murders,
7:08 Kylie Low? just didn't happen in their neighborhood, no matter what time of day or night.
7:13 Speaker 02 I mean, she was walking in the best part of town. So how it could have happened there? You know, down on Lake Avenue, maybe? But she would have had a reasonable expectation to be okay, even at that time of day.
7:31 Kylie Low? Needless to say, as the investigation unfolded and residents saw crime scene tape going up on their street, everyone was on edge and feared for their safety due to the seemingly random nature of the murder. However, police commented on at least one occasion that they felt there was some sort of intent or specific motive for killing Denise. But they had no basis or couldn't talk about what supported that belief as the investigation got its bearings. Early reporting from August 31, 2015, by Carol Robidoux for Manchester Inklink indicates that an autopsy showed Denise died of a single gunshot wound to the head. According to Tom and John,
8:16 Kylie Low? that may be a simplification or generalization of the actual autopsy findings. Specifics of the autopsy are being withheld in the interest of protecting the integrity of the investigation. What I can confirm is that Denise was shot, and she died as a result. Now, Manchester PD investigators were able to secure surveillance footage from local businesses and speak to witnesses right off the bat, which proved invaluable in piecing together Denise's last known movements. Props to these businesses for having functioning cameras that were on and recording that day, and to police for tracking down the footage before it was overwritten. If you've been here a while
8:56 Kylie Low? or listened to any other true crime podcasts slash watch any crime docu-series, you know that faulty cameras are far too common. Based on that footage and witness statements, we know Denise left Executive Health Club around 6:00 PM on the night of August 30th. At 6:08 PM, Denise was seen leaving a vitamin store on South Willow Street before heading to Walmart. She left Walmart within an hour at 7:07 PM and then went to Hannaford Supermarket on John Devine Drive. She left around 8:21 PM. All the stops she made after leaving the health club were within about a mile of each other and less than three miles from the health club.
9:41 Kylie Low? After leaving Hannaford, Denise drove her car to the parking lot of Brookside Congregational Church at the corner of Elm and Clark Streets. That's where she always parked for her Sunday night strolls. It's a five to eight mile drive between Hannaford and the church, depending on which route you take, so about 10 to 15 minutes. And just 39 minutes total after she left the supermarket, Denise was found dead. The 911 call came in at approximately 9:00 PM. As far as her brothers know, Denise wasn't being followed in any of the surveillance footage. There are no red flags that they're aware of from the cameras.
10:21 Speaker 02 The one she's going to the store, I believe she has a smile on her face, so it doesn't look like she didn't look concerned at all.
10:28 Kylie Low? In security footage on the night of her death, Denise was wearing a dark, long sleeved striped shirt with a white belt, white sneakers and white shorts. Police put out a photo from the footage and asked that anyone who may have seen or encountered Denise on that Sunday night to reach out with information. One of the only witness-reported details that has been widely disseminated to the public was from a passing motorist who was driving through the area of Ray Street around 9:00 PM that night. The witness said she saw a mid-sized pickup truck speeding east on Carpenter Street before it turned onto Union Street without stopping. After hearing about the shooting, the witness returned to Ray Street to tell police what she had seen.
11:12 Kylie Low? Another witness report supported this. A neighbor told police they saw a dark, possibly rusted, older model pickup truck speeding from the area. The driver went north on Ray Street, took a right, and then another right onto Union Street and over to Webster Street. Witnesses reported that the driver of the truck may have been a white man in his twenties or thirties with close-cropped hair and wearing a sleeveless t-shirt. The most updated description of the truck we have is that it was possibly red. In addition to the reports of a speeding truck, people who lived in the neighborhood reported hearing what sounded like fireworks or a firecracker just before 9:00 PM. It all lined up with the estimated time of the murder.
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13:54 Kylie Low? As word of Denise's murder got around Manchester, the community rallied around the Robert family in a really beautiful way. A few local people organized a candlelight vigil and memorial walk from the church where Denise was known to start her own walks. About 250 people joined in to honor Denise. Within days, the Attorney General's Office and the Manchester Police Chief announced that thanks to funds contributed by the New Hampshire Union Leader, the Union Leader Charitable Foundation, Denise's coworkers, friends, family, and other businesses, there was a substantial reward offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for Denise's death. At its height, the reward was nearly $45,000.
14:38 Kylie Low? After the reward was announced, police received about a dozen tips and were following up on each one of them. But at that point, there was no public acknowledgement that they had a suspect, had a motive, a theory, or anything to explain why Denise was shot and killed and who might be responsible. Despite the lack of progress from an outside view, though, Manchester's Police Chief Nick Willard assured the public that every available detective was working on the case. Some of those detectives returned to the scene, while others vetted information that came in from tipsters. On September 2nd, about 90 miles south of Manchester in a town called Millis, Massachusetts, an alarming string of incidents caught the attention of Detective Zon Denis's case.
15:22 Kylie Low? A part-time police officer in that town, 24-year-old Brian Johnson, radioed dispatch to report that his cruiser was shot at by a "white-tanned male" driving a red or maroon pickup truck. The officer said that the man fired a "black-barreled handgun" out of the driver's side window, and Brian said he returned fire. Eric Moszkiewicz reports for The Boston Globe that soon after, the officer's cruiser was found engulfed in flames. The red or maroon pickup truck sounded like the rough description of the vehicle seen speeding away from the area of Denis's murder, and the supposed gunfire also drew attention knowing Denis was shot.
16:05 Kylie Low? But unfortunately, the tip was a total dead end, because the officer allegedly fabricated the entire ordeal. He'd also allegedly called in a bomb threat to the local middle school earlier that day. He was later charged with a number of crimes, including willful communication of a bomb threat to a school, making a false police report, malicious destruction of property, and unlawful discharge of a firearm. The suspect submitted to a psychiatric evaluation and had told investigators that he blacked out at some point in the commission of these alleged crimes. The investigation in the case was dropped, however, when in November Brian Johnson was found deceased at his home. There was no evidence of foul play and his death was not investigated as a homicide.
16:47 Kylie Low? It's not clear how much, if at all, that false report derailed the early investigation in Denis's case, but I know the officer in that case was arrested and charged within 10 days, so it was obvious fairly quickly that there was no real red or maroon truck with an armed driver, at least not in that case. Back in New Hampshire, on September 4th, the same day as Denis's memorial, Manchester Police and agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms brought a search dog to Ray Street. They also searched the area with a metal detector. While investigators would not confirm what they were searching for, the assumption was that they were trying to track down a bullet or shell casings.
17:30 Kylie Low? Meanwhile, one of the other early tips that investigators ran down was a story about a disappearing couch. A man and three of his friends reported to police that on the night of August 30th, they found a seemingly abandoned leather couch in front of the lot at 63 Carpenter Street, about 40 feet away from the corner of Ray Street. They decided to take a seat and snap a few pictures, joking that the North End neighborhood was super friendly to pedestrians if they offered leather couches in place of standard benches. According to reporting by Mark Hayward, the men hanging out on the couch were the same people who discovered Denise's body. They'd left their comfy seating behind and walked around the corner of Ray and Carpenter
18:13 Kylie Low? Streets where they found her body lying face down in the road. It was obvious to the man that she was dead. One of the people in the group was a doctor who was visiting from out of state and he checked the woman and determined that she was deceased. The witnesses said that by the time they spoke to police at the scene and rounded back to the place where they were sitting on the couch, it was gone. All of 10 minutes had passed. The man said that the leather couch was pretty nice, but he wasn't sure if it was new. It wasn't like it was dumped there either. He said it looked like it was placed. He shared a photo with police of the couch in question. It was captured in one of the pics he and his friends took that night, and police were apparently going to try to enhance the photo to see if it could provide any clues.
18:58 Kylie Low? Now, police didn't directly address the couch story at the time, but the mystery was eventually solved without much of an impact on Denise's case. Turns out, someone's dad bought him a couch, but it didn't fit in his apartment, so he dropped it in the neighborhood. When his dad told him to go pick it up, he did, and he said he saw the police cars in the neighborhood while he was there. He didn't think anything of it. Some residents decided to take parts of the investigation into their own hands. On September 18th, two local community members went out to the area with their personal metal detectors in search of a bullet or bullet fragment. The men were not affiliated with the police department, but a Critical Incident Response Unit truck was parked nearby, keeping watch just in case any evidence was found.
19:43 Kylie Low? Pat Grossmith reports for the New Hampshire Union Leader that it was the third time the same site was searched, once by detectives, once by a private citizen after the scene was cleared by police, and now again by the two men. They methodically scanned the area where Denise was shot, including a spot near a tree stump and a woodpile. After two hours, it appeared the men did not find anything relevant. However, they did find a rusty nail and some old coins. Searching at the scene of the crime expanded as the weather got colder and the leads in Denise's case cooled off with it. According to reporting by Paul Feely, by November, police were laying the groundwork for additional searches, this time with assistance from the FBI. The FBI had been involved in the investigation from the beginning,
20:28 Kylie Low? primarily to lend resources that Manchester PD didn't have. And so FBI agents systematically searched property at 66 Carpenter Street with metal detectors, including trees and a stone wall and pile of leaves up against it. An agent collected undisclosed evidence from the area of the stone wall and leaves. The 66 Carpenter Street property happened to belong to an area auto dealer who had contributed to the reward fund and who worked with Denise in her capacity as an advertising salesperson for the newspaper. Her brothers believed that's actually one of the reasons Denise chose to walk in that neighborhood. She wanted to be out and about where her clients were. The site of Denise's body and a second property on the street
21:12 Kylie Low? were also searched in the same way. At the time, not even the family knew if a bullet had been recovered during the autopsy or if one had been found anywhere since. Police still were not confirming if that's why they'd returned to the properties on Ray and Carpenter Streets, but that remains the assumption. After six months with no arrests, no publicly identified suspects, and no apparent motive in the investigation, police at least finally cleared up one major detail in the case. Denise was killed in a drive-by shooting.
21:48 Kylie Low? Police chief still did not believe that it was a random act, but investigators also would not elaborate on any evidence there was to support this theory. Now let's talk about theories here for a minute. Because no matter how you parse the circumstances and try to fit them into a category that makes sense, nothing does.
22:16 Kylie Low? I'm going all out with holiday decorations this year because when our family comes over for our Christmas party, I want all the kids to walk into lights and sparkle absolutely everywhere. They're at that age where the magic feels so real, and I want those memories to stay with them. I'm especially excited to get a train to go around the base of our tree, just like I had as a kid. I found the most perfect one, plus ornaments, garland, other tree essentials, all of it at Wayfair. Wayfair makes it easy to find high-quality holiday decorations for every style and budget. Their Wayfair Verified Selection helps you find pieces that stand up to real life, and millions of verified customer ratings and photos to help you choose what works for your home. For all things hosting, Wayfair delivers high-quality, customer-trusted products for your home
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23:15 Speaker 05 Wayfair, every style, every home.
23:26 Kylie Low? Manchester Police Chief Nick Willard had discounted the rumblings about a serial killer back in the first month of Denise's investigation, saying, "If we had a serial killer, I would be talking about it. I would be raising alarm, not awareness."
23:43 Kylie Low? But then, within a year of Denise's murder, Manchester Police added several other homicides to their caseloads. On June 1st, 2016, Hans R. Odige was shot and killed in broad daylight on Spruce Street. A woman was also shot and injured in the same incident. Then on August 28th of the same year, the body of 61-year-old Richard E. Carlson was found on the bleachers at Prouse Park. He died from repeated strikes to his head, face, neck, and upper torso. This was not a shooting death, as in the cases of Hans and Denise. However, Richard, like Denise, liked to take long walks at odd hours, often ending up at Prouse Park to smoke cigarettes. Were the cases connected?
24:27 Kylie Low? Was Manchester dealing with a serial killer? Homicide prosecutor Jeffrey Strelzin stated that there did not appear to be a connection between the murders of Hans and Richard. Over the next few years, those cases were eventually solved, and what the prosecutor said rang true. The suspects were different in each case, and the motivations of those suspects were quite different, too. In the case of Hans Odige, a suspect named John Gibbo was arrested and charged with his murder, and ultimately pleaded guilty. We'll talk more about that case in a second. Now, as for Richard Carlson, a suspect named Jonathan Frenchie Bejol was charged with second-degree murder and later pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison. According to media coverage of the case,
25:10 Kylie Low? Jonathan picked Richard at random. His lawyers say the killing was carried out during an episode of psychosis brought on by the use of methamphetamine, but records show that the suspect had other violent offenses to his name. Another theory that police and Denise's family heard again and again was that her death could have been connected to gang activity in the city. There was talk that someone shot her as part of a gang initiation. Chief Willard was dismissive of the rumor, though. Quote, "I'm not even sure why a narrative like that is out there. Anyone who would say that should give us an explanation as to why. We've never had a situation in the city where we have gangs shooting each other as initiation. That's just people speculating with half-cocked ideas," end quote.
25:57 Kylie Low? Manchester PD had an officer devoted to gang violence in the FBI Safe Streets programs, tracked gang activity in the area, and according to Chief Willard, the “probability is almost zero” that Denise’s shooting was related to gang activity. He said that Manchester didn’t have a gang known to follow that MO, shooting innocent people for initiation. That said, nothing can be conclusively ruled out, not until the case is solved. And the reality is, the city of Manchester was dealing with plenty of violence and crime related to gang activity in 2015 and 2016. For that two-year span, a gang referred to as “The Squad,” in court documents, was
26:41 Kylie Low? wreaking havoc on the city of Manchester as the organization sought to control the illegal drug trade and human trafficking. In December of 2017, a Hillsborough County grand jury issued 101 indictments against 30-year-old Brandon Griffin, who was the alleged leader of The Squad. Court records from that case alleged that The Squad was responsible for shootings at homes where rival dealers were believed to reside, cutting the faces of women who were trafficked and forced into sex work, filming assaults and attacks to use in threats against other members, or associates who did not comply, as well as other illegal and violent acts.
27:22 Kylie Low? At the time of Brandon Griffin’s indictment, one member of the gang, John Gibbo, had already been indicted and convicted of homicide for the murder of Hans Odech. Hans was also allegedly a member of the gang, but he reportedly tried to strike out on his own, which was why his murder was ordered by gang leaders. In June of 2019, a jury found Brandon Griffin guilty of 53 criminal charges and cleared him of 19 charges. He was sentenced to 48 years in prison. Several other members of the gang were later indicted on various charges, too. So Manchester was definitely seeing real, violent gang activity, but in alignment with what Chief Willard had said, it appeared The Squad’s violence was against other
28:04 Kylie Low? people within their organization or rivals, and not innocent people at random, like Denise.
28:11 Kylie Low? Yet another theory that stemmed from the gang violence discussion was the suggestion that Denise was possibly caught in the crossfire or had intercepted a drug deal when she was killed. But again, the North End wasn't considered a crime-heavy area. At least one report by Mark Hayward identified the primary area of the squad's activity as Lake Avenue, Spruce Street, West Street, and Central Street, where some of the shootings at rival dealers' residences occurred. Denise was shot in the North End on Ray Street, a good two and a half to three miles away. It's not like it's impossible to get from point A to point B quickly, but sometimes there is an invisible barrier between the
28:53 Kylie Low? "good" and "bad" parts of town. And North End residents seemed fairly sure their "good" part of town didn't see the gang violence and crime like other parts of Manchester did. If you asked Denise's family at the time, her brother Tom would have said that he believed someone was trying to victimize Denise in some way, and knowing what he knew about his sister, she wasn't about to let them get away with it. He told the union leader in 2016 that he believed her death may have been related to the heroin epidemic in town.
29:24 Speaker 01 Of course, the encounter, there was no witnesses, so we can only speculate and take off on the little bits of information that we have.
29:34 Kylie Low? There were very few updates by the time the one-year anniversary of Denise's death rolled around in 2016. The case was still unsolved, and partly because of that, police were considering the possibility that it was actually a random killing, despite it being a less likely scenario. At the end of February 2017, police formed a new task force to investigate Denise's case, composed of two Attorney General's Office investigators and a Manchester Police detective who worked exclusively on Denise's murder. From the AG's office, it was Todd Flanagan and Steve Johnson, who had notably worked as the lead investigator on the Whitey Bulger case, and Detective Justin Breton from Manchester PD.
30:20 Kylie Low? For a few months, the task force worked behind the scenes, turning over every stone and rechecking leads. And in May, they returned to the scene of the crime. Investigators scoured the scene about 30 feet from where Denise was shot, behind a garage at 63 Carpenter Street. Detectives scanned the area with metal detectors and a police dog and manually sifted the dirt. If they found anything, it wasn't made public. But it was the first time that investigators admitted they still hadn't found the bullet that killed Denise. And then, a few months later, Denise's family caught wind of a search in progress about 15 miles away, in the town of Londonderry.
31:01 Kylie Low? About noon time on October 19, 2017, crime scene tapes started going up around a residence at 42 Kendall Pond Road. New Hampshire State Police and Londonderry Police assisted Manchester PD with execution of a search warrant at one of the units. According to reporting by Katie O'Donnell for the Londonderry Times, investigators were seen carrying out boxes of unknown items and sorting through and photographing the contents. At one point, a woman came out of the residence and yelled obscenities at reporters. Police did not specify what they were looking for or why that residence was searched, only that it was an investigative avenue they were following based on the evidence. At the time, the duplex was owned by two people who lived in Unit A.
31:46 Kylie Low? However, the search was for Unit B. The resident of that apartment later said that police were searching things that belonged to someone who didn't live there, but who kept some stuff at her place. The resident was advised not to disclose the name of the person whose belongings police had searched. To this day, Denise's family is unaware of the information that directed police to search the residence, and the search warrant affidavits remain sealed. I actually spoke very briefly to the woman whose apartment was searched, and she said that she didn't have anything else to say about it that she hadn't said already. She was holding somebody's belongings, and the next thing she knew, she was being, quote, "raided."
32:28 Kylie Low? The whole thing came as a complete surprise to her, and nothing that police took seemed unusual to her. Then she told me that, as far as she was told, the person who police were looking into was cleared. That was the extent of our conversation. I have a lot of questions, of course. Whose stuff was it? How did police identify this person? Does this person have any connection to Denise? Did the search actually rule this person out as the apartment's resident was told? Does this person and the information that led police to search their belongings fit into any of the theories that have been floated in Denise's case so far? Or does it open up another theory entirely?
33:10 Kylie Low? One that won't be clear until the person responsible is brought to justice. On the topic of "other" theories, there's been something nagging at my brain. So I asked Denise's brothers about it.
33:31 Kylie Low? I'm going all out with holiday decorations this year because when our family comes over for our Christmas party, I want all the kids to walk into lights and sparkle absolutely everywhere. They're at that age where the magic feels so real, and I want those memories to stay with them. I'm especially excited to get a train to go around the base of our tree, just like I had as a kid. I found the most perfect one, plus ornaments, garland, other tree essentials, all of it at Wayfair. Wayfair makes it easy to find high-quality holiday decorations for every style and budget. Their Wayfair Verified Selection helps you find pieces that stand up to real life, and millions of verified customer ratings and photos to help you choose what works for your home. For all things hosting, Wayfair delivers high-quality, customer-trusted products for your home
34:16 Kylie Low? so you can host and celebrate without the stress. When refreshing your home this holiday season, Wayfair delivers exactly what you need. Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R dot com.
34:30 Speaker 05 Wayfair, every style, every home.
34:41 Kylie Low? To preface this, there's something about Denise, a quirk, some have called it, that we haven't gotten into yet. Her abnormal work schedule also meant she had an abnormal sleep schedule, and it sometimes left Denise quite tired. She worked hard, put in long hours, got her exercise in, and sleep seemed almost like an afterthought fit into spare pockets of time during the day or night. She'd take naps in her car between meetings, things like that.
35:08 Speaker 02 She probably slept late because she was up all night, either working or she got a workout in. You know, and her sleep schedule wasn't, it was never, was never typical. She, you know, it affected things, right? She got in a couple of car accidents because she was awake and she probably might have been sleeping.
35:30 Kylie Low? The accidents were sometimes minor fender benders. Others were more severe. You'll remember that at the time of Denise's death, she was driving a rental car or a loaner car with dealer plates on it. She'd recently been in an accident that presumably required repairs to her own vehicle. Denise's frequent incidents and accidents behind the wheel were a known fact about her. One of her clients, Jay St. Jean of St. Jean Auctioneers, remarked in a 2015 article by Mark Hayward, quote, "She was always dressed to the nines, always a smile on her face, always had a story, always falling asleep, always bumping into someone with her car." He continued, "She was one of the kindest, gentlest souls I knew in my life." End quote.
36:15 Kylie Low? A story about Denise, published in the New Hampshire Sunday News, noted that Denise could often be found, quote, "taking a cat nap in her car, which one could usually identify by the dings and dents it had acquired." End quote. I asked John and Tom if any of the accidents caused bodily injury to herself or others, or if there were any significant financial or legal repercussions of those accidents. To their knowledge, no. Denise may have been involved in an accident one time where her car was totaled by insurance, but otherwise, there was nothing that stuck out to them.
36:50 Speaker 01 I think there was a concern about the frequency of some of her accidents, not so much the seriousness. And we did talk about, there was talk about, you know, her, her schedule and maybe she should make corrections.
37:07 Kylie Low? Here's where my mind went with this. Is it possible that Denise was involved in some sort of car-related incident prior to her death? And whoever killed her did so in a fit of road rage? For this to be a possibility, I would guess there'd be some kind of damage on the vehicle Denise was driving at the time. If there was, it hasn't been publicly reported, and her brothers are not aware if the car had any dents or dings or other damage when it was found. For research purposes, I dug into reports of "road rage" that made the papers in a 10-year span before and after Denise's murder. Road rage incidents turn violent and even deadly more often than you might think.
37:50 Kylie Low? I found several reported incidents of road rage that turned into a violent altercation with a firearm, and one of those cases was fatal. According to reporting by Andrew Wolf for the Nashua Telegraph, a 44-year-old man was driving home from dinner on February 2, 2010, when a pickup truck passed him, and then he heard three loud popping sounds. He thought maybe a rock hit his windshield, but then realized he was injured. He drove himself to the hospital, where he discovered he'd been shot with a 9mm bullet. If he had been a few inches shorter, the gunshot would have killed him. A witness later identified the driver of the passing pickup truck as 24-year-old Ryan Perkins, who confessed to the shooting.
38:34 Kylie Low? Because the victim apparently cut him off on Route 111 in Nashua, Ryan was sentenced to three to six years after pleading guilty to second-degree assault and reckless conduct. A few months before Denise's murder, on February 1, 2015, a reported road rage incident on I-93 in Manchester turned into a high-speed chase. 52-year-old Alexander Stevens allegedly shot another motorist while driving his red Saab station wagon and refused to pull over when New Hampshire State Police tracked him down. The suspect was eventually apprehended at his home after a brief standoff. He was charged with reckless conduct, criminal threatening, disobeying a police officer, resisting arrest, and other charges.
39:16 Kylie Low? On July 16, 2022, Jean-Carlo Medina Correa fired two shots in the direction of a passing vehicle during a road rage incident. One of the shots struck the driver. Jean-Carlo pleaded guilty to first-degree assault and felony reckless conduct.
39:34 Kylie Low? And then as recently as last year, 2024, a road rage incident in Littleton, New Hampshire, turned deadly. Police received a 911 call from a driver who reported he was being chased by another car and the driver had rammed into his vehicle several times. When officers were dispatched to the location of the report, they heard gunshots and came upon the scene of a two-car collision. The man who identified himself as the 911 caller was suffering from gunshot wounds, and he pointed to the driver of the other car, who was also suffering from gunshot wounds, and said that was the guy who kept ramming into his car. Thirty-eight-year-old Eric Rexford, the driver who allegedly rammed into the other car, later died from his injuries.
40:18 Kylie Low? The men knew each other, and the incident was still under investigation as of September of 24. However, Eric's death was ruled a homicide. In all of these incidents, there were two vehicles and drivers involved, and they went down while people were still in their cars. We know that Denise was not in her car or even near it when she was shot. So, could it still have been a road rage incident? Maybe. Did she bump into another driver in the parking lot at any of the businesses she visited before making her way to the North End for her usual Sunday evening walk? Did the owner of the vehicle follow her and kill her for, what, a door ding? A fender bender?
41:01 Kylie Low? I would have to imagine that, since there is surveillance footage from at least one of the businesses where Denise stopped before her death, that investigators checked video of parking lots to see if a red truck, matching the description of the one fleeing the scene of the shooting, was also at the supermarket or vitamin store or Walmart. I don't know that for sure, though. There are details of the investigation and the evidence that cannot be shared publicly, so we're left to theorize and speculate as a way to make sense of something senseless.
41:35 Kylie Low? I asked John and Tom about this road rage theory. I wondered if it had ever been explored, knowing what we know about Denise's driving record.
41:44 Speaker 01 I'm not sure. It's interesting. A road rage incident is an incident where I think the average person could be put into a life-threatening situation. It's sort of a random thing. But if you look at Denise's case, she parked her car. In the time involved, the distance involved, I'd say the probability of that is low. Now, you've got to talk about motive. I mean, could the person who shot her, did she run into him, you know, that day or before she parked her car there? Maybe. I suppose nobody can really say that that's not untrue, but I think it's a low probability.
42:30 Speaker 02 You'd like to think that in New Hampshire, like, there's not a lot of people like that. But I guess when you get the background of the drug activity, I guess there's a huge potential for that. Who knows? Maybe she just looked at someone the wrong way.
42:46 Kylie Low? For her brothers, one of the only things that makes sense is that Denise was targeted not for something long range or nefarious, but for ending up in the middle of something bad at the exact wrong moment.
43:00 Speaker 01 You think anybody, if they really wanted to, could think of something to criticize her? But I don't want to say she was a saint, but, I mean, she just did her thing.
43:13 Speaker 01 I don't think she meant to hurt anybody. She was probably just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
43:21 Kylie Low? 2025 marks 10 years without Denise, a full decade without the Robert family's big sister, who introduced Tom and John to the magic of the White Mountains as kids, who took them on hiking trips to appreciate the New Hampshire wilderness.
43:36 Speaker 02 Our sister was great when we were young. Like, she'd take us hiking up north. We got a lot of the White Mountains. And that was the first time we'd ever seen, you know, the whites. It was kind of a cool thing.
43:47 Kylie Low? John sent me a text after the interview. The conversation brought up a memory for him. His message reads, quote, "She was a talented artist and she would make cards for us that would include drawings of us. She was really good because we could recognize ourselves in the cards through easily identifiable features. We didn't have a lot growing up, but Denise made birthdays special for us with these." End quote.
44:12 Speaker 01 She was always there, not only to watch over us, but to offer guidance.
44:18 Kylie Low? Now it is Denise's brothers watching over her and the case. It is still unsolved, but it is not considered cold.
44:27 Speaker 01 We're in a phase right now and all the physical evidence that there is out there has probably been uncovered. And apparently that's not enough. So what we need to do is we need to bring information in from other sources.
44:45 Kylie Low? Dark Down Easters, there are thousands upon thousands of you who listen to this podcast from New Hampshire and surrounding states. So this is where you come in. You could make a major difference in the investigation. Share this episode, get people talking about Denise, and most of all, if you know anything that could help investigators, please don't sit on the sidelines assuming they already know. Anyone with information regarding the murder of Denise Robert is urged to contact the Manchester Police Department Crime Line at 603-624-4040.
45:26 Kylie Low? You can also submit a tip at manchestercrime line dot org. Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. You can find all source material for this case at darkdowneast.com. Be sure to follow the show on Instagram at Dark Down East. This platform is for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones and for those who are still searching for answers. I'm not about to let those names or their stories get lost with time. I'm Kylie Low and this is Dark Down East.
46:09 Kylie Low? Dark Down East is a production of Kylie Media and AudioChuck.
46:14 Kylie Low? I think Chuck would approve.
46:20 Kylie Low? In New England, investigations can shift with the tide. And my friend Delia Diambra, host of Park Predators, knows just how the landscape can shape a case. From beaches to national parks around the world, Delia investigates true crime cases as compelling as the places where they occurred. Through her signature boots-on-the-ground reporting, she goes beyond the headlines and speaks directly with those closest to the case. If you're ready to follow the evidence beyond the trail, listen to Park Predators every Tuesday wherever you get your podcasts.
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