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The Murder of Trish Haynes (New Hampshire)
00:41:58
In the summer of 2018, Trish Haynes disappeared from New Hampshire. Or at least, that’s what the public knew. Investigators searched a rural property, then quietly recovered something from a nearby pond, but for months, they said almost nothing about what they had found or how it related to the missing persons case. Behind the scenes, Trish’s family was living with a very different reality. They had spent months trying to reach her, hearing shifting explanations about where she was and why she couldn’t come to the phone. Then they learned a truth they were told not to share. Years later, the questions around Trish’s case still keep circling the same small group of people and places, and the same frustration from a family that believes this case is not without answers… It is without accountability.
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Some cases fade from headlines, some never made it there to begin with. I'm Ashley Flowers, and on my podcast the Deck, I tell you the stories of cold cases featured on playing cards distributed in prisons designed to spark new leads and bring long overdue justice. Because these stories deserve to be heard and the loved ones of these victims still deserve answers. Are you ready to be dealt in? Listen to THE Deck now, wherever you get your podcasts. In the summer of 2018, Trish Haines disappeared from New Hampshire. Or at least that's what the public knew. Investigators searched a rural property, then quietly recovered something from a nearby pond. But for months, they said almost nothing about what they had found or how it related to the missing persons case. Behind the scenes, Trish's family was living a very different reality. They had spent months trying to reach her, hearing shifting explanations about where she was and why she couldn't come to the phone. Then they learned a truth they were told not to share. Years later, the questions around Trish's case still keep circling. The same small group of people and places and the same frustration from a family that believes this case is not without answers, it is without accountability. Hi, I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is the case of Trish Haines on Dark Down East. On August 28, 2018, people in Grafton, New Hampshire looked up and saw a state police helicopter circling overhead. Down on the ground. Investigators with the New Hampshire Attorney General's office and New Hampshire State Police were searching a private residential Property, property near 225 Main St. The property itself covered about nine and a half acres without buildings scattered across it. Several investigators were seen moving in and around a garage type structure as a canine unit sniffed the soil outside. It was a serious and focused search. But for what the public didn't know, all investigators were willing to say was that Trish Haines was missing. Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Strelzen would not say whether Trish was believed to be the victim of foul play. He would not say whether investigators thought she was missing by choice, hiding, hurt, or something else entirely. But behind the scenes, Trish's family already knew this wasn't just some sudden disappearance that began with a search in August. For months, they had been trying to reach her. For months they had been told different things about where she was and and why she couldn't come to the phone. And for months, the people who loved Trish were caught in an awful uncertainty, trying to decide whether she was staying away by choice or whether something much worse had happened. Within days of that search on Main street, news Surfaced that crates had been recovered from Grant's Pond and the discovery was connected to Trish's case. Publicly, authorities still revealed almost nothing. They said only that the discovery was connected to Trish's case. They did not say what was inside. They did not say why they were searching that pond. They did not say what, if anything, it meant for the hope that Trish might still be found alive. And for nearly 10 more months, that was where the public version of Trish Haines case stayed. A missing woman, a secretive search, a discovery in a pond, and a family that knew there was so much more to the story and than anyone was being told. Valerie Haines Alvarez was there within hours of Trish's birth. Trish was born to Valerie's teenage niece, Megan. And while Valerie was not technically Trish's grandmother, she loved her almost like a grandchild. She remembered Trish as an adorable, vivacious child, a living doll, as Valerie described her, who loved getting dressed up and taken places. One of Valerie's clearest memories is from when Trish was still very young. Valerie took her to a children's play place in Florida. And as they pulled into the parking lot, Trish recognized where they were.
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At this point, she was so little, I didn't even know she could talk. And so she just started going with her little fingers like that. And she said, oh, I'm so excited. That's one of the first memories, is
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that I'm so excited.
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So.
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And it was simple, just a simple little thing.
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The more I talk to families who have lost someone they love, the more I've come to understand that they don't remember them at just one age. They remember every version. But so often the memories that rise to the surface first are from when they were children, before life got complicated and before anyone could have imagined where their story would go. No matter how old they were when they were taken, the people who raised them, loved them and watched them grow. They are always that sweet, innocent little kid somewhere in their mind and heart. Trish's childhood was not always easy. Her biological mother was in and out of her life, so she was raised by her maternal grandparents, Sandy and Stephen Tewksbury. From the age of three, she was loved, and Trish loved her grandparents right back. But the instability without her mother did not leave young Trish unscathed.
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She was happy, but there was a little bit of an inner sadness, I think. But I could sense that there was something in Trish that the more that I could be around, the more that we could do together. It could give her a little bit of sense of stability, she said.
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Trish could be happy and loving and fun, but there was also a vulnerability in her, something that made her want love so badly that she sometimes looked for it in the wrong places. According to Valerie, Trish had a pattern of getting into tumultuous relationships. One relationship in particular, Valerie believes, set off the chain of events that eventually brought Trish back to New Hampshire. In late 2017, Valerie told me Trish had been in a relationship with a man named Chris. She said Trish met him in Florida, but both of them had ties to New Hampshire, and they eventually moved to North Woodstock together. Chris worked as a chef at a restaurant in town, and according to Valerie, the couple lived in an apartment under that restaurant. Valerie said the restaurant owner started noticing signs of abuse in the relationship and tried to help Trish. In 2017, Trish reported the abuse to police, but according to Valerie, Chris pressured her to take back the statement because a charge or conviction of that nature could have sent him back to prison. Valerie said Trish did recant, but as a result, Trish herself was arrested for filing a false police report. By late 2017, Trish was back in Florida with her grandmother, trying to move on from Chris and from New Hampshire altogether. But according to Valerie, Trish still had that open court case there involving her recanted statements about Chris. What Valerie remembers clearly is that she did not want Trish to go back. Valerie told me she didn't think that New Hampshire authorities would pursue the case if Trish didn't appear.
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So I begged her, do not go back to New Hampshire. But to no avail. On December 16, 2017, she left her grandmother's home in Stuart to come back here.
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Trish was supposed to be in New Hampshire only long enough to appear in court in January of 2018 and put that chapter behind her. Instead, that trip brought Trish back to the place where her family would spend months trying to find her and years trying to get justice for what happened next. When Trish Left Florida on December 16, 2017, the plan was not for her to restart her life in New Hampshire in any permanent way. The family understood that Trish would appear in court, possibly serve a short sentence if that's how the case was resolved, and then return to Florida. It was supposed to be temporary, a loose end she needed to tie up. When she first got to New Hampshire, Trish stayed with a friend in Rumney. But Rumney is a small, rural town tucked into the White Mountains region and the place where Trish was staying was remote. Her friend was not home much, and Trish didn't have a car. So even though she had a roof over her head, she was isolated. Then the reason she was there in the first place got delayed. The January court date was pushed out to April, possibly due to a change in attorney. Suddenly, a trip that was only supposed to last a few weeks turned into months, and Trish needed somewhere else to stay. Trish had reportedly recently reconnected with a friend from high school, Ashley Ruff, who was known at the time as Ashley Smith. The plan, according to Trish's family, was for Trish to stay with Ashley and her husband, Douglas C. Smith Jr. For two weeks. On January 28, 2018, Trish got a ride to Evans Express Mart in Canaan, New Hampshire, where Doug and Ashley picked her up. Within about a week of Trish staying with Ashley and Doug, Trish's phone was either lost or stopped working. But Trish was receiving Social Security disability payments, so her family assumed that when her next check came through, she would replace her phone. That never happened. From that point on, her family says, direct contact became difficult. Trish was able to call them using Ashley's phone, but access to that phone was limited, and the family says the calls were short and monitored or controlled by Ashley.
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After she went to Ashley's, the only contact we had with her was if Ashley was in the room talking. But it was only very short, and the excuse was Ashley lived on a mountain. The cell phones didn't work very well, and the only time that they could talk is if they went to town and they could make a quick phone call. So, of course, Ashley's right there dictating what she's going to be able to say. And if it got, like, too long, Ashley would take the phone and Trish couldn't talk any longer.
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Amidst the spotty contact with Trish, her family learned that she had missed the very reason she was in New Hampshire in the first place.
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I finally got in touch with a Plymouth district court to see if she went to court and found out she never showed up.
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That was confusing for Trish's family. They couldn't make sense of it, and they never got the chance to ask Trish about the missed court date either. The last confirmed contact Trish's family had with her was on or around May 13, which would have been Mother's Day in 2018. The call was brief and strange. According to Trish's grandmother, Sandy. Trish told them they could only reach her through Ashley's phone, and then she Said she had to go. They never heard her voice again. Between May 19 and July 1, Trish's grandmother, her aunt Valerie and other loved ones kept trying to reach her. But every time someone answered the phone, the family says they were told Trish was not available or that she was staying with a new boyfriend in Vermont. On one hand, Trish was an adult. She had missed court. She had a history of complicated relationships. According to Valerie, it was not impossible that Trish might have gone off with someone new or stayed away because she was afraid of the consequences of missing court.
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So we went through June not knowing what to do, not knowing whether or not to file a missing person report.
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By the first week of July, Trish's family was done waiting for second hand explanations. They told Ashley that if Trish did not call the family directly, they were filing a missing persons report. The details of the exchange that came next are one sided as I haven't been able to reach Ashley for comment. Valerie claims that Ashley warned Trish's family that if they filed a report, they would never see Trish again. Trish's grandmother Sandy tried to pin that statement down in writing. She messaged Ashley and asked whether that warning was coming from Ashley or whether Trish herself was saying it. According to Valerie, Ashley did not answer the question directly. Instead, she said she had just gotten out of psychiatric treatment. The alleged warning did not stop Trish's family. They reported her missing to North Woodstock police. With that filing, investigators were able to stop Trish's Social Security check, hoping that if she was alive and avoiding contact, the missing money might bring her forward. But Trish never surfaced.
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When she didn't check for that money, we knew it meant she was in trouble even then.
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It took nearly two more months for Tricia's case to receive major public attention. The New Hampshire Attorney General's office announced that Trish Haines was missing on August 28, 2018. And the same day investigators searched that property at 225 Main street in Grafton and other locations. And then about three days later, investigators recovered something from Grant's Pond. At the time, the public didn't know what was pulled from that pond, but the family did. And they weren't allowed to tell anyone. I do not have the time counter space or emotional bandwidth for a morning supplement routine that looks like a chemistry lab. But as a casual fitness enthusiast, I do like to fuel my body with the right stuff that is actually backed by science. That's why iM8 stands out to me. IM8's daily Ultimate Essentials replaces 16 supplements with 90 premium ingredients supporting nine organ systems in one drink, including CoQ10 to support cellular energy, magnesium for muscle and nerve function, vitamin C for immune support and prebiotics and probiotics to support gut health. It simplifies my routine in a way I really need as a mom with high stress work every day, plus my routine of waking up at 5am to log some miles on the treadmill while watching reality TV. It's called balance. Go to im8health.com downeast right now and use Code Downeast for a free welcome kit five free travel sachets plus 10% off your order. That's code downeast@im8health.com downeast code downeast@im8health dot com downeast these statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, trait, cure or prevent any disease I don't play around when it comes to sleep. I am in bed by 8pm every night and I need to have my cozy zone dialed in. But bedding can feel like one more thing you're supposed to research forever. I'd prefer to research my cases forever. Not percale sateen organic cotton cooling soft crisp. It's just too much, too many words when it comes to sleep. So let me save you the decision fatigue because the only words you need to know are bowl and branch. I've tried a lot and Bolen branch is the bedding I keep coming back to. There's nothing worse than crawling into bed and realizing your sheets are stretched out, scratchy, too hot, constantly coming loose. You don't always notice how worn down your bedding has gotten until you replace it with something that feels completely different. So like the famed philosopher Beyonce once said, let me upgrade you. Your bed needs an upgrade with Bowlen Branch. I have the Bolen Branch signature sheets and waffle blanket on my bed and the whole thing just feels calmer, cooler and more luxurious. Sleep co this summer with Bowland Branch during their annual summer event. For a limited time, get 20% off site wide@bolandbranch.com Downeast with code downeast that's boleandbranch b o l l a n d branch.com Downeast code downeast to take 20% off bolenbranch.com Downeast code downeast exclusions app. As far as the public was concerned, Trish Haines remained a missing person through the rest of 2018, into the winter, then spring and into the summer of 2019, there had been searches. There had been a quiet recovery from Grant's Pond. There had been confirmation from investigators that whatever was pulled from the water was connected to Trish's case. But publicly, there was no explanation for what had been found and no announcement that Trish had been located. Behind the scenes, though, Trish's family learned the truth much sooner. Investigators had recovered human remains in Grant's Pond.
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Once they found that Sandy had come from Florida to come here to have a DNA test and it was verified that it was Trish.
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More specifically, according to Valerie, it was the only part of Trish investigators could identify her jawbone recovered from inside a combined washer dryer unit that had been pulled from Grant's Pond.
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And they told us that we could not tell any of this, that we had. They swore us to secrecy. Now, this was in September.
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According to Valerie, investigators said making the discovery public could jeopardize the investigation. So for months, people still asked whether there had been any word from Trish. And every time Trish's family had to decide how to answer without revealing what they had been told.
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It goes through November, December. People are still asking us, have you heard anything from Trish? I mean, how do you answer something like that when you know darn well that the only thing that's left of her is a jawbone found in a dump washing machine in Grant's Pond? She and I are supposed to keep this a secret.
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Frustrated with the slow progress in the case and unable to keep the unimaginable secret any longer, Valerie had planned to announce the information on behalf of the family and told the AG's office their plan. She arranged for an interview with WMUR's Amy Covino to tell their story. But the AG beat them to it. Nearly 10 months after the recovery at the pond, the public finally learned Trish Haines was dead. On July 10, 2019, the New Hampshire Attorney General's Office announced that the remains found in Grafton during the course of the investigation had been identified as Trish. According to an autopsy, her manner of death was homicide. The public announcement turned the already scarce but strange details from the previous year into something much darker. Trish hadn't just vanished. The case was officially a homicide now. But that didn't mean the family had answers. It meant the question changed. They were no longer asking where Trish was. They were asking who killed her, who knew? And when would anybody be held accountable? According to reporting by Jordan Kudemi for the Valley News, the search at 225 Main street was connected to the people Trish had been staying with before she disappeared, Ashley Ruff, AKA Ashley Smith, and her husband at the time, Douglas C. Smith Jr. According to notes from Trish's family, two other Grafton locations searched around that time were also believed to be connected to the same couple. A property on Wild Meadow Road and another on French Hill Road. Once Trish's family learned more about the people she had been staying with, their concern only deepened. I want to be very clear here. No one has been charged with Trish's murder. The New Hampshire Attorney General's office has not publicly named any suspects in Trish's case, and they have not publicly confirmed the family's understanding of what may have happened inside that Grafton house. But as we already know and what has been reported by multiple public sources, Trish went to stay with Ashley and Doug in late January of 2018, and what was supposed to be a two week stay became the last place Trish was known to be living. According to Trish's family, not long into that stay, her phone was either lost or stopped working. And from then on, her family says all contact with Trish had to go through Ashley. By the time Trish missed court and the family started pressing harder for direct contact, they received various explanations for why Trish couldn't talk. She was unavailable. She was with a new boyfriend in Vermont. She didn't want to speak to family until Trish's grandmother finally said she was filing a missing persons report if Trish didn't call herself. That is why, for Trish's family anyway, Ashley and Doug are impossible to separate from the case. Trish was living with them when contact narrowed, explanations changed, and then she disappeared from everyone else's reach. Both Ashley and Doug had criminal histories before Trish disappeared, though Doug's was especially lengthy. Doug was a registered sex offender convicted of felonious sexual assault in 2009. Public reporting also noted prior convictions for criminal threatening, burglary and assault in March of 2018 while Trish was still alive. According to the family's timeline, both Doug and Ashley were arrested on charges of theft by deception and receiving stolen property. Their records did not stop after Trish's disappearance either. In September of 2019, after Trisha's remains had been identified in, Doug was arrested on charges connected to an incident in Warner. According to reporting by Alyssa d' Andrea for the Concord Monitor, police responded to Parade Ground Cemetery road on August 18, 2019 for a report of shots fired and Doug was accused of firing a handgun at a moving vehicle around the same time, both Doug and Ashley had other cases moving through court in Newport District Court. In 2019, Ashley pleaded guilty to tampering with public records and unsworn falsification charges. Doug also pleaded guilty to unsworn falsification and multiple tampering with public records charges. Meanwhile, Doug's legal trouble escalated. According to a January 2020 New Hampshire State Police news release, Doug was wanted as a fugitive for two outstanding felony domestic violence warrants. Police were careful to say those charges were not related to Trish's case. By late February 2020, state police said, Doug was believed to be concealing his location from law enforcement because he was a registered sex offender. Police said his alleged attempt to hide also amounted to a new felony offense for failing to register as a criminal offender or sex offender. Authorities believed he was receiving help from other people to hide and delay his apprehension. At that point, Doug was already wanted in Merrimack County Superior Court on voter fraud and and weapons charges, too. The New Hampshire Joint Fugitive Task Force entered the search for Doug in March of 2020. In news releases at the time, Doug was described as a career criminal who might be armed and dangerous. A $2,500 reward was offered for information leading to his arrest and he was featured as Fugitive of the week by the U.S. marshals. Doug was ultimately arrested on June 9, 2020 in West Charleston, Vermont. U.S. marshals found him outside a residence where he had been staying with friends and using a fake name. He initially complied with law enforcement, but when he realized he was being arrested, he resisted being handcuffed and was subdued with a Taser. On December 2, 2020, Doug pleaded guilty as part of a global plea agreement involving Merrimack County, Sullivan county and the New Hampshire Attorney General's Office. The charges included a felony count of aggravated felonious sexual assault, felony and misdemeanor wrongful voting charges, felony reckless conduct with a deadly weapon, felon in possession of a firearm and felony duty to inform. He was sentenced to five to 10 years in prison, with some sentences concurrent and others suspended. The aggravated felonious sexual assault charge stemmed from the sexual assault of a woman in Croydon in January 2020. The reckless conduct charge stemmed from the August 2019 Warner incident where he fired a gun at a car. The duty to inform charge stemmed from failing to register as a sex offender in September 2018 and February 2019, and the voter fraud charges came from the March 2018 town elections in Grafton and Danbury. Listen, I know it's a lot to follow and it's not even a complete Criminal history. Meanwhile, Ashley's cases continued too, but for a moment, she was a plaintiff in a few cases, not the defendant. One such case involves a dedicated supporter of Trish named Chloe French. She went to school with Trish and Ashley, but couldn't have expected that years later she would become one of the fiercest advocates, leading the pursuit of answers for her former classmates. Chloe created the justice for Trish Facebook group where she, Trish's family and other supporters discuss the case and share their ongoing awareness and advocacy efforts. Chloe tells me that in 2019, Ashley filed for a protective order against her, alleging stalking and harassment. After a hearing, the order was dismissed. Fast forward a few years. Ashley's mother also filed for a protective order alleging harassment by Chloe, among other claims. That too was dismissed as unfounded. According to Chloe, neither Ashley nor her mother could produce evidence that supported their claims. Chloe steadfastly denies the allegations. Back To September of 2020, Ashley filed a civil case against Warner's police chief, the department, and other officers, but that case was later dismissed when she failed to appear. She also filed a restraining order in November 2020 against the same parties, but that request was dismissed in February 2021. By 2022, Ashley was expected to go to trial on a protective order violation and felony falsifying physical evidence charges. She was scheduled to appear in court May 17, 2022, but did not show up. A warrant was issued and she was arrested on July 5. She was released a few days later, then failed to appear at another hearing and was arrested again on August 4, according to reporting. She then failed to appear at two more bail revocation hearings in August. Then In October of 2022, a state police trooper tried to stop a car on Elm street in Newport, in part because it had no license plates. The car did not stop, so police pursued and even deployed stop sticks. But the driver kept going, driving from Newport to Claremont and back again before eventually crashing into a Claremont police cruiser. The driver was Ashley Smith. At the time, there were three electronic bench warrants out for her arrest, plus a Superior Court warrant for two other charges. As a result of the chase, Ashley was charged with disobeying an officer, false imprisonment, operating with a suspended license, falsifying evidence, and felony reckless conduct, according to court records. Ashley was later convicted of felony falsifying physical evidence, felony criminal restraint, and felony reckless conduct with a deadly weapon. When the family looks back at Trish's final known months, they see her staying with Ashley and Doug, who they later learn have long criminal histories that have only gotten longer since Trish's death. Domestic violence, criminal restraint, sexual assault, weapons charges, among others. None of those records prove what happened to Trish, but it is easy to understand why they deepened the family's concern. There's one more detail about Ashley's family history that does not officially connect to Trish's case, but came up in my reporting, and it's worth noting. Ashley's grandmother was Betty place, a Warner, New Hampshire woman who vanished from her home on June 14, 1978. Betty was reported missing the next day. Her body has never been found, and authorities have long treated her disappearance as suspicious. To be clear, no one is suggesting that Betty Place's disappearance has anything to do with Trish Haines murder. But in a case already shaped by silence, unanswered questions, and a family sphere that people know more than they've said, it felt wrong not to at least name that history. None of this. None of their convictions, Ashley's or Doug's answer what happened to trish? Ashley Ruff, aka Ashley Smith and Douglas C. Smith Jr. Have not been charged with or convicted of any crimes as it relates to the murder of Trish Haynes. However, according to public reporting by Damian Fisher for the New Hampshire Union Leader, police have investigated Douglas C. Smith Jr. In connection with Trish's case. According to Trish's family, the stories and rumors just keep circling back to the same household and those connected to it. And once the public found out that Trish wasn't just missing, but dead, people came forward with claims about what may have been happening inside that home. I'm finally at the part of our kitchen renovation where I get to turn all the dust, decisions and drywall into the space I've been picturing for months. That's why I keep finding myself on Wayfair. I want this kitchen to feel warm and coastal and like it actually belongs in our house. But I also need the budget to survive the process. So I'm looking at Wayfair for the pieces that are going to make this place more than just a pretty kitchen. The sink, the faucet, the counter stools, the breakfast table, and the swivel chairs for the little seating area I have been dreaming up in my head since day one. I can already see my daughter coloring nearby while I'm making dinner. Something good simmering on the stove and friends settling in with a drink like they came over for a tiny getaway. That's the feeling I'm shopping for, and Wayfair makes it a whole lot easier to get there. Ready to upgrade your home for way less. Head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home and get your space ready for less. That's W A Y-F-A-I R.com Wayfair Every Style Every Home Three decades ago, a young woman named Angie Dodge is found brutally murdered in Idaho Falls. Police put a man behind bars, but as the years pass, doubts emerge about whether the real killer was ever caught. That's when Angie's own mother embarks on a decades long mission to uncover the truth. Listen to the Snare, a new series from ABC Audio. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. According to Trish's family, after the Attorney General publicly confirmed Trish's death, people who had been in and around Ashley and Doug's circle began talking more openly. The family says that at least one person came forward to detectives with what they understood to be firsthand information. According to Chloe French, before the announcement that Trish's case was a homicide, this witness didn't believe Trish was dead and didn't think the information they had was critical. So they kept it to themselves all that time. Valerie's family and many supporters have long felt that the gap between the discovery of Trish's remains and and when the public actually heard she'd been murdered significantly damaged the case because witnesses who may have had information didn't know just how serious the situation had become. Valerie says she started hearing from other people who claimed they had seen Trish being mistreated while she was living in Grafton. One woman, according to Valerie, said she saw Trish physically abused. Others told Valerie that Trish had been forced to do housework, care for children, and hand over her Social Security money. Valerie says the family has also heard a disturbing account from people connected to the Grafton house and the people living or staying there that Trish had been held at the home abused, and that an altercation involving jealousy and conflict inside the household may have escalated into the violence that killed her. However, part of that account came from someone who was a child at the time, which may complicate how investigators or prosecutors evaluate it. And these accounts have not been publicly confirmed by the Attorney General's office. So one allegation the family has heard is that Trish was held at the home against her will, or at least prevented from leaving in some way. Separately, years after Trish's death, Ashley Ruff, also known as Ashley Smith, was convicted of felony criminal restraint, among other charges in connection with that unrelated 2022 case involving a car chase in New Hampshire. Criminal restraint is a felony level offense that generally means someone knowingly confined another person unlawfully through force, threat, deception, or another unlawful means in circumstances that exposed that person to a risk of serious bodily injury. I'm still waiting on documents from that case, so I don't yet know the full factual basis for Ashley's criminal restraint conviction or how it connects to the 2022 pursuit. Public reporting noted that a man was inside the vehicle and was released without charges, but it didn't explain the factual basis for the false imprisonment or criminal restraint allegation. Whatever the circumstances of that conviction, it does not prove anything about what happened to Trish. But against the backdrop of the family's long standing concerns that Trish may have been prevented from leaving the Grafton house, it is a detail I'll continue to examine carefully. The rumored and unverified accounts do not stop with Doug and Ashley. They suggest other people in and around the household may have had information about, witnessed, assisted with or participated in what happened before and after Trish's death. Valerie told me she's heard from people that say they either witnessed or heard about individuals connected to the Main street property dumping the washer dryer set into Grant's Pond.
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I mean, they're not just going to go check a pond for a washer and dryer for no reason.
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It is hard to imagine investigators finding that exact location by chance, but publicly authorities have not said what or who led them there. Valerie and other supporters have their own theories based on information they say they have gathered over the years. Yet the information that led investigators to Trish's remains is apparently not strong enough to also lead to charges. The size and weight of a washer dryer unit raises another obvious question for the family. Could one person have moved and dumped it alone? Those things are big and heavy and awkward. Valerie believes the size and weight of the appliance suggests more than one person may have been involved in dumping it, but investigators have not publicly confirmed who moved it, how it got there, or whether more than one person was involved. I tried to reach both Doug and Ashley as part of my reporting for this episode, but as of this recording I have not heard back. Ashley's comments in the past are limited to one interview with WMUR's Jennifer Crompton during the search for Trish as police were processing the Main street property in Grafton in August of 2018, Ashley told local media that she woke up to a knock on the door and police announcing themselves. She was confused as to why police wanted to talk to her and why they were Looking at properties where she lived and two other places she used to stay. Ashley told the reporter, Hopefully Trish will see this and she'll come out and show the public that she's fine. I'm worried sick about her. End quote. From the family's perspective, this is not a case with no leads. Their frustration is anchored in why, after all these years, the leads have not been enough for an arrest. Because only Trish's jawbone was recovered. As far as we know, her cause of death could not be determined, even though her manner of death was ruled homicide. A homicide ruling says Trish's death was caused by another person. But without a known cause of death, without a complete, complete body, or without a confession of some sort, building a case would be difficult. Difficult, though, is not the same as impossible. And that is where Valerie's anger comes from.
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B
Trisha's is not unsolved. Trish's case is unprosecuted, not culled, not
- [39:22]
A
forgotten, not unsolved in the way people sometimes use that word, as if there is nothing to work with and nowhere left to go. From Valerie's perspective, there are people who know what happened to Trish. There are people who have talked. There are leads, witnesses, and years of information gathered by investigators and by the family themselves, and still no one has been charged. To be fair, where it stands now, based on publicly available information, this is not a simple case to prosecute. But Valerie's argument is that difficult cases still have to be worked. They still have to be tested. They still have to be pushed as far as the evidence will allow. To Trish supporters, every year that passes makes accountability harder, not easier. Memories fade. Witnesses move, stories shift. People who may have been willing to talk become harder to find, harder to trust, or harder to put in front of a jury. Valerie believes investigators had their best chance early, when the people around the Grafton house were still close to the moment when the searches were fresh, when the discovery in Grant's Pond had just happened, and when witnesses were still surfacing. She does not understand why, all these years later, Trish's case has not resulted in charges.
- [40:44]
B
They're certainly not going to get a conviction if they don't try. How many years is it going to take?
- [40:51]
A
Tricia's former classmate and current supporter Chloe French shares in Valerie's frustration.
- [40:57]
C
I would like to eventually see changes made, and this goes way beyond just Trish's case, but really the criminal justice system itself, I mean, it is what it is. It's justice for the criminals, and it is set up that way. And there needs to be changes made. No family should have, should be waiting for, at this point, seven years for answers. The family shouldn't be putting in more work regularly than the investigators. And that's how it feels. It is a slap in the face, and it's disrespectful when you're told the same thing over and over, that there is no new information to report. And we are still trying to determine what, if any, criminal charges can be brought forward. We are kept in the dark. For all we know, not a darn thing has been done with her case because they do not share anything. I understand about having to protect the investigation, but I also think there needs to be some oversight so they can even prove that an investigation is being done. That's really opened my eyes to how little justice for victims there really is.
- [42:18]
A
From the outside, it is easy to understand why a prosecutor would be cautious. If a case is brought too early and a jury acquits, the state may not get another chance. If key witnesses are unreliable, if accounts conflict, if the physical evidence is limited, every weakness becomes something a defense attorney can use. And yet, hard cases have been prosecuted before. Cases without a complete body, without a clear cause of death, Cases where prosecutors had to build the story piece by piece and trust a jury to see the pattern. From the family side, caution can feel like paralysis. It can feel like the state is waiting for a perfect case in a case where perfect evidence may never come. In the years since Trish was found, Valerie has turned her grief into advocacy. She has helped organize rallies at the New Hampshire State House, pushing not only for Trish, but for other families with unresolved homicide and missing persons cases. What started as a small gathering has grown, and other families have joined. More people have learned Trish's name, and more people have asked why her case remains without charges.
- [43:35]
B
My big mouth has served a purpose,
- [43:38]
A
but that advocacy has come at a cost. Valerie told me she never expected so much of her life to be consumed by this. Her own daughters are grown, and she said neither of them ever caused her this kind of worry. But Trish was family. She was the little girl Valerie dressed up and took shopping, the child with big brown eyes who got excited about simple things.
- [44:03]
B
But I just can't let it go.
- [44:06]
A
And really, how could she? When a case remains open but no one is charged, the family is left in a strange, exhausting place. For Valerie, the fear is not only that Tricia's case will remain unresolved or unprosecuted. It is that the people who know what happened will outlast the system's will to pursue them.
- [44:30]
B
She did not deserve to have the end that she had. She had a few problems, but they were not problems that they should think. She's not worth fighting for. She needs to be fought for.
- [44:45]
A
Trish Haines loved fashion and animals. She loved the beach and the color purple. She described herself as kind, caring, honest, loyal, funny, smart and outgoing. She had people who loved her, people who were trying to reach her, people who knew something was wrong long before the public ever heard her name. And now those people are still asking the same questions they have been asking for years. Who killed Trish? Who helped? Who knows? And when will anyone be held accountable? It isn't too late to speak up. If you know anything about what happened to Trish Haines, or if you have information about the people or places connected to her final months, please contact New Hampshire State Police at 603223, 4381. You can also follow along with the family's advocacy and updates by joining the justice for Trish Haines private official Facebook group. Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. You can find all source material for this case@darkdowneast.com Be sure to follow the show on Instagram. Instagram arkdowneast 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 Lowe and this is Dark Down East. Dark down east is a production of Kylie Media and Audio Check. I think Chuck would approve.