Dark Downeast - The Murder of George Jodoin (New Hampshire)

Episode Date: April 17, 2023

NEW HAMPSHIRE, 2001: On December 27, 2001, a friend arrived at 50-year old George Jodoin’s farmhouse in Auburn, New Hampshire, expecting to get a tutorial on caring for his animals ahead of George��s trip to Thailand. Instead, he found George dead in his bedroom.In the early days of the investigation, the list of suspects could never be narrowed down to just one person. Investigators were frustrated, and the residents of Auburn, a small town just east of Manchester, feared there could be a killer on the loose. Despite a sizable reward offered by the Jodoin family and efforts by investigators, a year passed with dwindling leads, no arrests, and a lack of evidence. Eventually, the case went cold.But in 2009, New Hampshire’s first-ever Cold Case Unit was established. Within two years, the Cold Case Unit had taken on over a hundred cases of unsolved murders and missing persons in New Hampshire. George’s brother, Robert Jodoin, made sure George's murder case was a priority to investigators. Fourteen years after George Jodoin was found dead in his home, New Hampshire’s Cold Case Unit landed their first conviction.View source material and photos for this episode at darkdowneast.com/georgejodoin Dark Downeast is an audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted by Kylie Low.Follow @darkdowneast on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTokTo suggest a case visit darkdowneast.com/submit-case

On December 27th, 2001, a friend arrived at 50-year-old George Jodin's farmhouse in Auburn, New Hampshire. He was expecting to get a tutorial on caring for George's animals ahead of George's trip to Thailand. Instead, he found George dead in his bedroom. Despite a sizable reward offered by the Jodin family and efforts by investigators, a year passed with dwindling leads, no arrests, and a lack of evidence. Eventually, the case went cold. But in 2009, New Hampshire's first ever cold case unit was established. Within two years, the cold case unit had taken on over 100 cases of unsolved murders and missing persons in New Hampshire. George's brother made sure George's murder was a priority to investigators.

14 years after George Jodin was found dead in his home, New Hampshire's cold case unit landed their first conviction. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is the case of George Jodin on Dark Down East. 50-year-old George Jodin was described as a big brother, not only to his own siblings, but to everyone. The third of 10 children, George lived on a 20-acre farm in Auburn, New Hampshire. It was the same property where he and his nine siblings were raised. In 2015, George's brother, Robert, told New Hampshire Public Radio, quote, George was our big brother. To our family and friends, we all looked up to him. George enjoyed life, maybe more than he should have. He did it with style. End quote.

George was a vivacious man, and he enjoyed his life to the fullest. He was a businessman, a pilot, a sailor, an auctioneer, a beekeeper, a realtor, even a pianist. In March of 2001, George even tried his hand at local government, running for town selectman in Auburn, but he ultimately didn't win the seat. George had gone into business with his friend, Glenn Baruti, opening a pawn shop in Manchester years earlier. According to a 2001 Associated Press article in the Portland Press-Herald, the pawn shop experienced some break-ins in its earlier days, but customers said that there hadn't been any recent issues. Although the shop was called I Buy and Sell Everything,

one customer said that George wasn't one to bargain. George and his business partner Glenn were extremely close. Close enough that the Concord Monitor reported, George updated his will to include Glenn. His updated will left everything to Glenn Baruti. This included his share of the pawn shop business, his sailboat, and the 20-acre farm and home that George had grown up in. But the will did include a stipulation that if Glenn Baruti sold the farm property within 15 years, Glenn could not benefit from the sale. The updates to his will were made only three weeks before George's death. George was an avid traveler, and in December of 2001,

he was looking forward to an upcoming trip to Thailand in the new year. Associated Press writer Lynn Tuohy reported in the Concord Monitor that George had asked Glenn Baruti to stop by after Christmas so he could give him instructions on how to care for his farm animals while he was out of the country. But when Glenn arrived at George's farm on December 27, 2001, George didn't answer the door or respond as Glenn called out his name. Searching the house for his friend, Glenn walked room to room until finally he found George in the bedroom. He'd been shot. New Hampshire State Police responded to the 20-acre farm to begin their investigation.

They found George's home to be disheveled, leading investigators to believe that he may have had a few friends over the night before, but nothing appeared too out of the ordinary. The Portland Press-Herald reported in 2001 that police took impressions of footprints, hoping to identify anyone who had been at George's house in the days and hours leading up to his murder. In the same article, it was reported that neighbors Eugenie and Jean Belanger told police they'd seen a white pickup truck in George's driveway for most of that day, and they heard gunshots around 11 p.m. on the night of December 26, the night before he was found. George often shot his guns on his property, so even though the

hour was late, the sound of gunshots coming from George's place wasn't concerning enough to warrant a call to the police. But now with George dead by apparent gunshot wounds, the information took on a new importance. George Jodin's death was immediately ruled a homicide, and the autopsy confirmed that he was killed by three gunshot wounds to the head and neck. Though he had been shot, authorities processing the scene found no bullet casings and no gun as they searched the farmhouse and the surrounding property. Investigators wouldn't say if they had had any suspects, but the assistant attorney general did tell the Portland Press-Herald that detectives were following up on a number of leads.

Auburn Police Chief Edward Picard, who retired in 2019, said in an episode of the true crime documentary series Murder Comes to Town that investigators interviewed a number of George's family members, friends, and business associates, desperate to find answers as to who killed George and why. Some of those interviewed by police were identified as suspects early on, including Glenn Beruti, George's close friend and business partner, and the man who found his body. Chief Picard said in the documentary series that Glenn didn't call 911 immediately after discovering George's body in the farmhouse. Instead, Glenn first called his father, and it was actually Glenn's father

who made the call to 911 to report the murder. This, Chief Picard said, raised some red flags. Beginning in the earliest days of the investigation, the list of suspects included a few of George's closest friends and even some family members. George's brother Robert had rushed to the home they'd both grown up in upon hearing the news that his brother was shot, and he encountered George's friend Ricky Caron there. Robert later told police that he saw dark red stains on Ricky's pants. Police spoke with Ricky and asked him a few questions, and Ricky seemed distraught during the questioning. They'd planned to take a closer look at Ricky's whereabouts on the night of December 26th. Police were also looking at a friend named Arthur Collins.

According to reporting by Lynn Toohey in the Concord Monitor, Arthur's family members said he and George were best friends. They loved to go deep-sea fishing together, or on less adventurous occasions, they'd just get together for drinks. Arthur also performed some handyman and odd jobs around the farm, like hauling metal and towing cars away to a nearby auto yard. According to NHPR, Arthur Collins had an alibi on the night of the murder. He had been at George's house for a few drinks, but he had left hours before George was shot and made it back to his house around 9 p.m., he said. His wife, Dorothy, backed up his alibi and told police

that Arthur came home around the time he said he did. Meanwhile, one of George's own family members caught the attention of police, his brother, Pete Jodin. George had recently given a piano to Pete and his wife. Pete had found a Ruger revolver stowed away inside the piano and went over to return it to George on the night of December 26th. Pete told police he'd left the gun on the kitchen table in George's house before he left for the evening. Police knew that revolvers do not eject shell casings and there weren't any found at the scene. Could that Ruger revolver have been the murder weapon?

And if so, where was it? More than a week went by and police were still no closer to solving the murder of George Jodin. On January 5th, 2002, the Concord Monitor reported that the Derry Fire Department had sent a dive team into the waters of Lake Massabesek. George's property on Chester Road was located directly across the street from the lake's eastern shoreline.

The Concord Monitor did not share what investigators were hoping to find or if they did find anything at all. Ricky Caron, Arthur Collins, and Pete Jodin all had alibis at the time, but their names were never taken off the list of suspects. Glenn Beruti was also on that list. The change in George's will, leaving everything to Glenn just three weeks before George was killed, remained a compelling detail for investigators. Not to mention, he was the man to find George's body, and he didn't call 911 right away. Glenn was repeatedly singled out in media reports. It was clear that Glenn had become a prime suspect. Glenn said in

an interview for Murder Comes to Town, quote, I was in their crosshairs, end quote. But a year passed with little progress, no arrests, and no meaningful leads. George's brother, Robert, announced a $20,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in George's case. In a 2002 AP article in the Concord Monitor, Roberts said, quote, I know law enforcement has been working extremely hard and they have a number of possible suspects. It's just a matter of eliminating the ones that didn't do it, end quote. But ruling suspects in or out was the entire challenge, and police had yet to narrow the case down or make any arrests. Despite the efforts by family to keep attention on the case and encourage

new information with a sizable reward, George Jodin's case went ice cold. In the summer of 2009, nearly eight years after the murder of George Jodin, New Hampshire Governor John Lynch signed HB 690 into law, creating the state's first-ever cold case unit. The unit focuses on unresolved suspicious deaths, unsolved homicides, and missing persons cases in which authorities suspect foul play. The unit's website states that in the past 40 years, there have been approximately 120 homicide victims whose killers have not yet been brought to justice. In a 2012 Concord Monitor article, Auburn Police Captain Gary Bartis told AP reporter Lynn Tuohy that their department's attempts to get the cold case unit involved in George Jodin's case had been unsuccessful. That is, until Detective Bill Berry went to work part-time with the Auburn Police Department in 2011 and was assigned to George's case. Detective Berry had been one of George Jodin's neighbors at the time of his murder,

and so he had a bit of a personal motivation on top of his professional one to see justice served in George's case. He and George's brother, Robert Jodin, made sure that police didn't forget about George as the cold case unit began combing through long-standing cases. Captain Bardis of the Auburn police told the Concord Monitor that Robert was an incredible advocate for his brother's case and, quote, really spearheaded the effort. He was just trying to get justice for his family and his brother, end quote. Soon, certainly thanks in part to Robert's efforts and persistence, the state police cold case unit did get involved and assigned their own investigator, Bob Freitas, to work alongside

Auburn PD Detective Bill Berry as they reopened the case. Detective Bob Freitas told the producers of the documentary series Murder Comes to Town, quote, over a long period of time, relationships between people involved in these cases sometimes change, and when they do change, that's when your In September of 2011, nearly 10 years after George's murder, Detective Bob Freitas and Bill Berry decided to meet up with George's friend and longtime suspect, Arthur Collins, once again. During the detective's conversations with Arthur Collins, Arthur tried to implicate another man in the murder, a mutual friend of Arthur and George, who sometimes helped Arthur with the odd jobs around George's property. Arthur told police that this was the man they were looking for all along. But when detectives interviewed the man in question, he said that

he had a drinking problem back in 2001 and couldn't honestly say with 100% certainty that he did or did not kill George. He simply couldn't remember if he did. Police were stunned, but without more evidence to support the accusation, they couldn't pursue an arrest. Still, police pushed forward. They had more witnesses to interview, some for the first time in the investigation, including Arthur's niece, who was just 16 years old at the time of George's murder. The niece had been at Arthur's house on

the night George was killed, and she remembered that Arthur, who drove a white pickup truck similar to the one seen at George's house all day, he returned home between midnight and 1am. This account varied from the one Arthur and his wife had told police 10 years earlier, that he'd returned home around 9 o'clock that night. That's when Arthur's alibi began to unravel. His wife, Dorothy, changed her story. Dorothy had originally corroborated Arthur's alibi in 2001, but in the renewed investigation, she confessed that she had lied about the time Arthur had come home on the night George was killed. Just as the niece told police, Dorothy finally admitted that Arthur did, in fact, come home around midnight and not 9pm.

WMUR reported in 2015 that when police interviewed Arthur again in 2011, he changed his story multiple times. Investigators decided to administer a lie detector test. When the results indicated that Arthur was lying to investigators, he finally confessed to the crime. On Wednesday, May 16th, 2012, after more than 10 years, Arthur Collins was arrested for the murder of George Jodin. In August of 2012, WCVB News reported that newly released documents in the case against Arthur Collins revealed that Arthur claimed he murdered George because George was trying to, quote, do stuff to him, end quote. Arthur was claiming that unwanted sexual advances were the motivator behind the killing. Court documents obtained by WCVB stated that on the night of the murder, Arthur claimed that after an unwanted sexual advance in the bedroom,

he grabbed a gun that was on the kitchen table, returned to the bedroom, and fired the gun as he backed away. He ran out of the house, taking the gun, a Ruger Redhawk Magnum, with him. Investigative documents state that Arthur later destroyed that gun while also crushing a vehicle at the junkyard, where he would often take junk cars and scrap metal from George's property. But George was believed to have been shot while he slapped, which didn't really align with Arthur's version of what happened. Prosecutors did not elaborate on the theorized motive in the pretrial hearings. On July 1st, 2015, Arthur Collins pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 30 years to life for killing George Jodin. It was the New Hampshire Cold Case Unit's first

conviction. Jeff Strelzin of the New Hampshire Attorney General's Office told WMUR, quote, This case was a result of a lot of hard work by a lot of different people. Sometimes you get lucky, and sometimes you make your own luck. And that's what happened here, a combination of those two things, end quote. The lives of Glenn Baruti and Ricky Caron, who had remained on the list of suspects for all those years, had long been impacted by their suspected involvement in George's death. In Murder Comes to Town, Glenn remembered hearing people whisper, it was him, it was him. Glenn saying, quote, it was just tough, you know, going out, you know how people are, end quote. Rick explained that he

was alienated from his family and friends as doubt continued to follow him. The stress of this case and the suspicion surrounding Ricky's possible involvement ultimately led to the end of his marriage. Quote, Rumor mill hits without any control. My ex-wife, her mother, packed it up, moved to Holden, Maine, fearing for her life. All those days my kids suffered. End quote. At Arthur Collins' sentencing in 2015, WMUR reported that Rick had brought a sign that said 3,794 days of doubt. Rick told WMUR, quote, this is how many days that doubt was out there that I had something to do with this crazy stuff, end quote. In 2021, AP News reported that Arthur Collins asked that his guilty plea from

2015 be withdrawn, claiming that his plea was a mistake and that his lawyers did not show him the evidence that was used against him. But there's no legal requirement for defense lawyers to show their client any of the discovery evidence. The judge denied Arthur's request, ruling that Arthur failed to prove that his plea was involuntarily made. Cold cases require much more time and often a different approach than investigating recent cases. Jeff Strelzin of the Attorney General's Office told Lynn Tuohy in 2013, quote, we have on average 20 homicides a year.

Law enforcement has to go out and solve those cases first. That doesn't leave much, if any, time to go back to old cases, end quote. But with the cold case unit, those older cases finally had a chance at closure. In 2012, Detective Bob Freitas talked with CBS News Boston about the cold case unit's work in George Jodin's case. Quote, We're able to get things done that other departments budget-wise, personnel-wise can't get done, so it's rewarding.

End quote. But despite its highly publicized and celebrated success in George's case, New Hampshire's cold case unit was at risk of losing its funding only four years after its inception. In March of 2013, the Valley News reported that the unit had run out of funding the previous month and was at risk of being dismantled. Governor Maggie Hassan worked to include enough funding for the unit in her proposed budget, but Deputy Attorney General Anne Rice believed

that the already limited resources, quote, would really have to focus on the homicides that are happening now, end quote. State Representative Rennie Cushing disagreed. Cushing's own family had been impacted by the violent murders of his father and brother-in-law in separate incidents. In response to Deputy Attorney General Rice, Cushing said, quote, New Hampshire doesn't have a statute of limitations on the crime of murder,

and we don't have a statute of limitations on pursuing justice, end quote. In a May 2013 article for the Nashua Telegraph, Joseph Cody reported that the cold case unit would likely be shut down by the summer of 2014 after all funding had been depleted. Dissolving the cold case unit would have left more than 100 cases unsolved and more than 100 families without answers. Fortunately, that did not happen. According to the Cold Case Unit's 2013 annual report, New Hampshire's Department of Safety and Department of Justice both agreed to separately fund their respective positions in the unit from their own annual budgets. Since then, New Hampshire's Cold Case Unit has diligently worked to identify the victims found murdered at Bear Brook State Park,

as well as assist the state's major crimes unit in the investigation leading to the arrest of Wendell Noyes, who was accused of killing his 11-year-old stepdaughter, Selena Cass. They are still actively working on a multitude of missing persons cases, like that of 4-year-old Patty Wood of Swansea, and Maura Murray, a Massachusetts woman who disappeared after a car accident in Woodsville. According to the Cold Case Unit's 2017 annual report, unit members, along with the Attorney General's office, even participated in a six-part documentary series called The Disappearance of Maura Murray. Most recently, the New Hampshire Cold Case Unit announced

that with the help of the DNA Doe Project, they were able to identify the remains of a woman found in the woods in Bedford, New Hampshire in 1971. Catherine Cathy Ann Alston's homicide remains unsolved, but the positive identification was an enormous step forward in the long-standing investigation, and it was proof that with the right resources and dedicated efforts by the Cold Case Unit, new information can be uncovered in New Hampshire's unsolved cases.

Attorney General John Formella told Boston 25 News, It demonstrates our unwavering commitment to the pursuit of justice for Ms. Alston, for her family, and for all New Hampshire crime victims, end quote. The New Hampshire Cold Case Unit's victim list includes 128 unsolved murders, missing persons, and suspicious deaths, going all the way back to 1966. That's 128 families who are still without answers. If you have information regarding any New Hampshire cold case, please contact the New Hampshire Cold Case Unit at 603-271-2663. You can also email coldcaseunit at dos.nh.gov or leave a tip via the form linked in the description of this episode. With the help of New Hampshire's Cold Case Unit, there is still a chance of solving these cases

and bringing closure to more families of New Hampshire's missing and murdered loved ones. NHPR reported that at Arthur Collins' sentencing, Robert Jodin told the courtroom that his brother George was, quote, a warrior at heart. He should have died with a sword in his hand, not a bullet in his head. Robert also addressed Arthur directly, telling him, George had a heart bigger than the world. If you had only asked him, he would have helped you, end quote. Robert was fighting off tears as he spoke. Heather Hamill wrote for WMUR that a number of George's friends and family

were finally able to get closure. Closure that was long awaited, especially given that some of them were suspects for years. For others, it felt like vindication. During interviews with the producers of Murder Comes to Town, friends and family members shared that George was a good guy who loved his family, especially his nieces and nephews. Sylvie Redburn said, people just naturally gravitated to him.

Ricky Caron said, he told me he lived to bring the life out of people. George's sister Angelina simply stated, I just miss him. Sources cited and referenced for this episode are listed at darkdowneast.com. Please follow Dark Down East on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening right now. The best way to support this show is to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Facebook, and share this episode or any episode with your friends. If you have a personal connection to a case I should cover, if you are a member of a family or law enforcement, please contact me at hello at darkdowneast.com. Thank you for supporting this show and allowing me to do what I do.

I'm honored to use this platform for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones, and for those who are still searching for answers in cold missing persons and homicide cases. 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.