Hunter fatally shoots a fellow hunter
Croydon, NH (US)Incident Date: Saturday, Jan 3, 2004
County: Sullivan
Disposition: Alleged
Alleged: Steven Laro
Laro, of Concord, NH was indicted on 3/10/04 on charges of negligent homicide, reckless conduct with a deadly weapon and felonious use of a firearm. Laro is accused of killing Robert H. Proulx (age 58) of Epsom, NH at Corbin Park, a private game preserve in Croydon.
The men were part of a hunting party looking for elk, boar and deer.
Proulx, was the owner of Wildlife Taxidermy and Sports Center in Manchester, was a former Marin Corps Veteran and grandfather of four. He had been hunting with 6 other men.
Prosecutors allege that Laro mistook Proulx for a wild boar and violated his duty to make sure of his target before shooting Proulx with a Browning semi-automatic rifle .200 Winchester Short Magnum.
Laro's lawyer contends the charges against his client are politically motivated. Attorney Paul Maggiotto contends the state may be trying to get at the owners of the park, which is closed to the public and exempt from some state hunting laws.
Laro was fired from the Franklin police department in 1991. He petitioned the city to get his job back but was not rehired. Personnel files revealed, that the former Police Sergeant was recommending by a psychologist's report not be trusted with a gun and a badge. The Attorney General said Laro should not be allowed to work on homicide cases while in Franklin according to the files. Laro credibility problems once cause the reversal of a 1st degree murder conviction. The employment file described him as volatile, abusive and untrustworthy.
Before coming to Franklin, Laro worked for the Boxford, MA police department, where he was suspended twice for bad behavior on and off duty, according to a state police file in the NH State Police records. Those records also stated Laro tended to be verbally and physically abusive and that he had lied on polygraph tests.
In 1990 was the primary witness when Carl Laurie was convicted of beating, strangling and stabbing Lucien Fogg of Franklin to death outside Fogg's home in 1989. Laurie's fingerprints were found on the knife used to stab Fogg, was sentenced to life in prison, but appealed the sentence when he learned that evidence of Laro's controversial past had not been revealed in trial. In 1995, Laurie's 1st degree murder conviction was overturned. Laurie plead guilty to 2nd degree murder ad was given a 30-year sentence instead. The State Supreme Court ruled that in future cases, information about the credibility of witnesses must be given to the defense.
Convicted child rapist Denis Gagne was also released from prison in 1995 and given a lesser sentence because his defense team had not seen Laro's file. It was later revealed that the Attorney General's office had failed to present the information about Laro's history even though prosecutors had known about it at the time.
Since 1977 in New Hampshire, there have been 45 accidental shootings of one hunter by another.
References- WMUR TV
- The Union Leader
- The Concord Monitor
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