By Mark Davis
Valley News Staff Writer
GRAFTON COUNTY, N.H. — A judge’s order that none of the four defendants charged in connection with the killing of Chris Gray have contact with each other is causing headaches for the staff of the crowded Grafton County jail, where three of the alleged conspirators are being held.
“Logistically, it’s a nightmare,” Grafton County Corrections Superintendent Glenn Libby said. “You always have to be thinking about what you are doing and who is where.”
The jail has a basement, first floor and second floor. Michael Robie is being held in the basement, Timothy Smith on the first floor and Amber Talbot in the female wing on the second floor. Robie and Talbot are charged with conspiracy to commit murder and Smith is charged with second-degree murder.
“They are all pretty stacked right on top of each other,” Libby said.
But separating their rooms is not a foolproof solution. Defendants often have to be moved during the day, for appointments with lawyers and doctors, or for recreation time, and corrections officers must carefully coordinate their movements to make sure the defendants do not bump into each other in the halls or side rooms.
Also, Libby said he is weary of mixing other inmates who have shared rooms with more than one of the Gray defendants, out of concern that the inmates could be used to pass messages back and forth.
Further complicating matters, inmates in Grafton County often speak to one another from different floors because their voices easily carry along the piping system that runs in the center of the jail.
Libby said that some of the defendants have had minimal contact, but no “significant” contact. He did not elaborate.
Libby said he knew he did not have the space or manpower to keep all four inmates away from each, so he had the fourth defendant, 18- year-old Anthony Howe, transferred to the Belknap County jail. Howe is charged with hindering apprehension in the October slaying in North Haverhill
Copyright 2009 ProQuest Information and Learning, Valley News