Drug Court and The Feckless Justice System Part 4

August 28, 2015

I went to the arraignment today. He has no lawyer yet. D-bag asked to get back into a rehab, one that he had been in previously but he had to leave early because of another felony bench warrant. The Judge said no. Not anywhere closer to getting my stuff back. His parents were sitting in front of me. His mom was a mess. She started telling me that he is suicidal and that he is probably on heroin. She apologized to me. I said that it was his decision to enter my house without permission and take things that he had not right to, not her decision. She cried harder. I feel a bit jaded. I feel for her as one mom to another. But I really would like to kick the shit out of her 'little boy.' He has changed me. Not feeling very Christ-like right now.

I wanted to tell her how lucky she is that she is lucky she is sitting in court seeing her son by video in the court room, because this could have ended very differently had I not overslept, had Rick come downstairs and into the kitchen. She could have been making funeral arrangements today.

 The County Attorney assured me that this was pretty much a slam dunk,~my words, not his. They still didn’t know if anyone else was involved. He was to be held in the County farm.

August 29. 2015

I woke up, grabbed my coffee, butts, Rick’s laptop and a hand gun, and then went out on the patio with Lily, to catch up on what’s going on in the world outside of my family’s drama. Then this happens:

Just now. Sitting on my patio, reading FB. Hear rustling in bushes and sounds bigger than a squirrel. Lily lifts her head and hears it too. Pick up one of Ricks hand guns, and walk around the kennel a bit, hear nothing. Point the laser towards where the sound came from. I stand there about a minute. Trying to decide if I want to go in and get a flash light, and wishing I had the AR that has one. Decide I am over reacting, and walk the other way around the house to get the paper and see if the stock marker crashed yesterday. I have my gun under my arm pit as not to freak out anyone driving by. I see a kid with orange sleeves walk across the street from the corner of my driveway to the telephone pole in front of the ballpark where here picks a bike up out of the brush, gets on it and rides away towards town. He has on a backpack. This F'ing sucks.

Later that day, I talked to my neighbor and the guy I saw getting on the bike stashed in the brush was more than likely was the same guy that rummaged through his cars this morning.

Over the next week, I was unable to get any answers on when I could get my stuff back, so I ended up having to get a new phone. A friend that works for an attorney got her boss to call the Police evidence guy to finally get all but the guns released three weeks later. Another friend that is a House Rep introduced a new bill to empower and protect victims by getting their belongings back to them on a timelier basis.

Week after week, I could feel myself changing inside. I was obviously depressed I don't think it is an overstatement to say that I may have been experiencing a bit of ptsd. Coming from the perspective of someone that tries to "fix" things, I felt pretty broken and wasn't sure how to restore things back to normal life. And I replaced fear with anger.

Drug Court and The Feckless Justice System Part 3

The Rochester Police Department arrested who turned out to be Nathan Bell. It took less than an hour from the time I realized we had been robbed. There was proof that he was the one. He even left a perfect footprint on the back of a sheet of paper that had fallen on the floor when he had been rummaging through my stuff in my living room. He handed a cop Rick’s wallet. Both of those things proved he has been in our home. I had been told that was important because they were still not sure if he was working with someone else, and he could have said that someone gave him the wallet, and the guns, that the cop had seen him toss while he was running into the woods.

We found the bag with my purse and electronics in a neighbor’s yard. A few days before I had rolled quarters, about $110 worth. They were lined up in front of my laptops. They were taken with everything else and are probably they reason he stashed the bag so close. They kind of weighed things down. The only thing missing from my purse was my gun. When arrested he had a partial pack of butts, (mine) an orange lighter, (mine) and a Gideon Bible, that I have no idea who it belonged to.  Rick and I found my phone and my ear buds hanging from a tree in the woods. The Police said that it would be a while before we got anything back. All the evidence, (our stuff) needed to be processed for fingerprints.

 A while? How long is a while? I started hearing horror stories about evidence being kept for well over a year. Things being 'lost" or "damaged" in police custody. When was the last time you went without a phone? One of the laptops is my church’s laptop, and I am the church treasurer and kind of need my QuickBooks to do my job. $400 plus rolled quarters…I pay my utilities online, but I am a Dave Ramsey fan, and use the cash envelope system. Suddenly I am down a paycheck and still need to get gas, groceries, etc… I mean, that was what my plan originally was for today…

I took solace in knowing that we had him, and if the cops continue to do everything right that they had been doing, he would be going away for a long time. Three felonies. 3, 7-15 year sentences. Resisting arrest, Plus as it turned out, he had a bench warrant in Concord and crap in Merrimack. Open and shut. Right?

His Arraignment was scheduled for the next day, Friday, August 28th, at 11 am. And I planned to be there.

Drug Court and the Feckless Justice System Part 2

Day 1

As I said before, the Police arrived at our home within ten minutes of our call. 15 minutes later there were several cruisers in the driveway and officers in our home. Suddenly their radio’s crackled. I couldn’t understand what was being said, but all but one cop hurried out of our house and driveway. 

There had been at least one other cop their way to our house when the officer noticed someone walking through the Parking lot of Liu’s Garden at approximately 5:20 am.  He approached the “suspect” and attempted to ID him. The “suspect” handed him Rick’s wallet. When he realized what he'd done, he took off running through the woods and swamp that lies between Old Dover and Lowell St. As soon as he started running he dumped his pockets of our guns, my phone, my iPod, somebody else’s wallet, a Gideon Bible…

Several Cops chased him through the woods, They pinned him down in the swamp.

August 27, 2015 10am

While all the Rochester Police were Rock Stars today, Officer Deluca went above, beyond, through the woods, into the swamp, and took the D~bag down! He even came back to the house with out his shoes. They are still somewhere out in the swamp. He was Awesome.

The rest of our day was spent looking for all our other belongings that he had taken a stashed. We had a lot of help from our friends searching the woods. It was strange; we found our things in a bag beside our neighbors shed, around 2 pm. It was weird because many of us had walked by that tree and shed so many times and never saw the bag. 
It was clear that he came in through the basement back door, cleaned out the electronics, my purse, (gun, cash) stashed everything, and came back in went upstairs to where he found and took Rick’s gun and wallet, which was about the time that Lily knew someone was in the house…and we shooshed her.

August 27, 2015  9pm

So, after the ordeal that my family went through today, there have been some changes at the Dunton Homestead. We have new locks, and they will be used. Yes, we still have guns, and they will always be within our sight. Also, while searching for my crap today, I realized that the stream/river/swamp is very think and over grown and would be a great place to hide a body. I won't EVER feel this way again. Just Saying

Drug Court and the Feckless Justice System. Part 1

Many times in the last year and a half people have asked me to put my experience of being robbed and my subsequent encounter with the ineptitude and or corruption of the court and corrections system into a blog.  Much of what my family and I went through has been general knowledge through Facebook status’s that had been shared numerous times. I hadn’t thought much about any of this the last six months when I much washed my hands of everything, assuming our felon had burnt his last bridge and would be doing at least ten years in state prison. That was until last Monday when I received a message at work from a good friend. “Hey, Kathy, what was the name of the guy that broke into your house last year? Looks like your guy is this week’s Rochester’s Most Wanted, just FYI. Nathan Bell, right?” 
Boom. Sure enough, he was out and back to doing what he does. My mouth went dry, my gun got placed back in my waistband, and all sense of peace was replaced by anger once again. The whole range of emotions on this ride is quite exhausting. From wanting to kill him, to wanting to save him, to just feeling numb about the entire incident. So, I decided to talk about it some more. I will take FB status’s and try and fill in some blanks as much of what was written, at the time was by pure emotion. I am trying to get back to the numbness. Hate and anger take way too much energy. I have had a headache more days than not this past week. 

August 27, 2015 4:30am
I have a sleep pattern has me up most days about 3:30 am. I slept later that day. We woke up to the dogs barking. Rick went downstairs and saw nothing. Knowing I wouldn’t be getting back to sleep at that point, I got up a few minutes later. I came downstairs to find the side door wide open. I didn’t think too much about it, as the door jam thingy did not always catch, and kids or whoever may have put the dogs out last, may not have noticed. Plus, it’s August. It is’ hot and humid. I made Rick’s coffee and brought it up to him, grabbed mine and headed to our basement living room. I noticed right away that it was super dark. Usually, there is a light from the two laptops casting a blue glow across the room. I switched a light on and saw nothing, no laptops on my desk. No phone or Ipad was charging on the bookcase, no purse with my handgun, and $400 cash…yea we were robbed. Lily and Bandit knew what they were barking at, and we ignored them.  I yelled up to Rick that everything was gone, that my gun was gone, and he ran downstairs to the dining room to where he used to unload his pockets. His wallet, his gun, and two ammo mags-gone. 

The Police were called and responded within 10 minutes. They had him within 35 minutes.

My first status of this long road.

August 27, 4pm-ish

"This was not how I planned to spend my day off. I hope this douche bag enjoys his 7-15 years on the firearms charges. I am ever so grateful to all the Rochester Police Officers that showed up this morning. You guys Rock!"

Rochester NH Police Department

August 27, 2015 · 

On 08-27-15 officers from the Rochester Police Department responded to a past tense burglary which happened at a residence on Old Dover Rd in the early morning hours while the homeowners were asleep in bed. The homeowners advised they had woken up and discovered that their doors were opened to the home and they were missing some electronics, as well as 2 firearms. Police set up a perimeter as it was believed the suspect was potentially still in the area. As the officers were setting up the perimeter one officer made contact with a male located in the parking lot of Lius Garden at 603 Columbus Ave. The officer spoke briefly with the male before the male turned and started to run. As the male began running away from the officer he removed two items from his person and threw them into the woods. These discarded items were identified as the two stolen firearms from the burglary. Rochester Police K9 unit responded and tracked the male along the old railroad bed in the woods near Old Dover Rd. After a short track the suspect was apprehended in the woods by Rochester Officers. The suspect was identified to be:

CHRISTOPHER NATHAN BELL
 Age: 23
20 ACADEMY ST Apt. #A ROCHESTER, NH
He was charged with the following crimes:
BURGLARY Felony
RESISTING ARREST OR DETENTION
RECEIVING STOLEN PROPERTY Felony Firearm
RECEIVING STOLEN PROPERTY Felony Firearm
BENCH WARRANT- CONCORD DISTRICT
ARREST ON A WARRANT-MERRIMACK SUPERIOR COURT
RECEIVING STOLEN PROPERTY Misdemeanor

Bell refused bail and was sent to Strafford County Jail where he will be held until his arraignment on Friday August 28th, at 11:00am. The arraignment will be via video at the Rochester District Court.