A man faces charges including first-degree murder in a rampage through southern New Hampshire that left a senior dead and another man wounded the day before Thanksgiving 2022, prosecutors said Thursday.
Robert Gagnon is accused of bludgeoning Robert Prest to death with a hatchet in Lyndeborough, shooting another man in Brookline and stealing two vehicles, according to the New Hampshire Attorney General's Office.
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The new charges were brought down in an indictment from the Hillsborough County Grand Jury on Feb. 16, prosecutors said. Gagnon was indicted on charges of first-degree murder, attempted murder, theft and more.
He is accused of hitting Prest, an 83-year-old from Lyndeborough, multiple times in the head with a hatchet, on Wednesday, Nov. 23 — the day before Thanksgiving. He also stole Prest's gun and a BMW car, prosecutors said.
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Gagnon is also accused of shooting a 44-year-old in Brookline, New Hampshire and taking a Jeep that belongs to another man, from Peterborough.
It wasn't immediately clear if Gagnon had an attorney who could speak to the charges.
Prest was found dead at his Lyndeborough home on Center Road about 9:30 a.m., that Friday, and while he was initially believed to have been fatally shot, authorities later said his autopsy determined he was killed by blows to the head.
The shooting in Brookline, about 15 miles south of Lyndeborough, on the Massachusetts border, happened several before Prest's body was found that day, authorities have said. The man was rushed to a hospital from a home on Townsend Hill Road.
Authorities had previously said they believed the two incidents were related but did not elaborate on the connection at all.
