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in: New Hampshire, 1964, 1985,
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Danny Paquette

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Danny paquette

Danny Paquette

Real Name: Daniel Neal Paquette
Nicknames: Danny
Location: Hooksett, New Hampshire
Date: November 9, 1985

Case[]

Details: Danny Paquette was the son of fifty-four-year-old housewife Rena Paquette. In January 1964, the body of fourteen-year-old Pamela Mason was found in the town of Hooksett, New Hampshire--four years after the body of Sandra Valade was discovered. Both had disappeared during snowstorms and were found raped and murdered, their belongings scattered around town. Rena claimed to know the identity of their killer, but the police did not act on her tip.
On the morning of February 3, Danny, then thirteen, came down for breakfast and found that Rena was not home. He called his uncle and they searched for her throughout their farm. They figured something was wrong because it was a cold morning and she had left her winter clothing behind. After searching for over an hour, Danny noticed smoke coming from their barn, which was one mile from the family home. Inside the pigsty was Rena's charred body.
Surprisingly, the police ruled Rena's death a suicide, however, her family believes that she was murdered by the same man that killed Pamela and Sandra. A few weeks after Rena's death, a local delivery man named Edward Coolidge was arrested and charged with Pamela's murder. He was later convicted of it and sentenced to life in prison.
Danny was deeply affected by Rena's death. As he grew up, he became closer to his brother, Victor. His adolescence and adult life were troubled. He married and became a father, but in 1981, he and his wife divorced. In a bitter legal battle, he lost custody of his children. In summer 1981, after becoming frustrated that he could not see them, he went to his ex-wife's home and demanded to be let in. She called the police and he was taken into custody.
After the outburst, Danny was sent to a psychiatric hospital. Under hypnosis, he revealed that he had seen Rena arguing with a delivery man on the day that she was killed. He later claimed that it was Edward Coolidge, Pamela Mason's killer. However, Rena's case was not reopened.
Five months later, Danny was released from the hospital and tried to change his life for the better. On November 9, 1985, he was repairing a bulldozer while his two friends were working in the garage. At around 11am, they heard a loud pop. They found him lying on the ground; he was shot in the back and had been killed instantly. Near the site where he was killed, police found footprints that they believe belonged to the killer, who had apparently ran from the scene.
The bullet that killed Danny was found in a nearby telephone line. The authorities investigated the possibility that he had died accidentally and was shot by hunters in a local gravel pit approximately one mile from the area where he was shot. However, the theory was later discounted because of the distance between the pit and him and the fact that the bullet would have had to go through various obstacles in order to reach him.
Some of Danny's friends and family now believe that the same person who killed him was responsible for Rena's death years earlier. However, their deaths remain a mystery.
Suspects: Initially, it was suspected that Danny was accidentally killed by a hunter. However, this theory was discounted. Police speculated that he may have been mistaken for Victor and killed as a result. However, no evidence was found to support that theory. Shortly before his death, he got into a physical fight with the son of one of his girlfriends. There was speculation that his murder was related to one of his relationships.
Danny's family believed that his murder was related to Rena's death. Edward Coolidge, Pamela Mason's killer, is a possible suspect in Rena's death. However, he could not have physically killed Danny as he was in prison at the time.
Extra Notes: This case first aired on the October 24, 1990 episode. It was also documented on Unusual Suspects and On the Case with Paula Zahn.

09-eric-windhurst

Eric Windhurst and Melanie Cooper

Results: Solved. In 1991, Rena's body was exhumed, and her cause of death was changed from "suicide" to "undetermined". Her death remains a mystery. That same year, Edward Coolidge, the man serving time for Pamela Mason's murder, was released due to a legal technicality.
In 1992, Danny's relatives appeared on a New Hampshire TV show to talk about this case. Shortly afterwards, they received two anonymous letters which stated that a man named Eric Windhurst was the killer. However, investigators were unable to corroborate the information. In 2004, this case was reopened and detective William Shackford was assigned to it. He reviewed the entire casefile and felt that Eric needed to be reinvestigated. By then, investigators had received more tips pointing to Eric as the killer. One of the tips was from his former girlfriend and another was from a schoolmate. In December 2005, he was arrested and charged with Danny's murder.
At the time of Danny's murder, Eric was seventeen and had been dating his fifteen-year-old stepdaughter, Melanie Paquette Cooper. When originally questioned, they claimed that they were at a field hockey game at the time of his murder. However, when Melanie was reinterviewed in 2004, she admitted to being with Eric when he killed him. She claimed that he had sexually abused her. When she told Eric about the abuse, he decided to kill him. Around that time, Eric also learned about sexual abuse in his own family. It is believed that this abuse also helped motivate him to kill. Surprisingly, his family told police that they had known about him committing the murder, as it had been an "open secret" among them.
In August 2006, Eric pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and received a sentence of between fifteen and thirty-six years in prison. In December, Melanie was sentenced to three years in prison for hindering the investigation into Danny's murder. She was released after serving fifteen months. In 2016, Eric asked the court to have his sentence reduced; the request was denied. In October 2020, he was granted parole. He was released in December.
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