By AnnMarie Timmins
Concord Monitor
CONCORD, N.H. — As of late yesterday, state medical officials had not determined the cause of death for the inmate found unresponsive in the state prison over the weekend. Staff there said the autopsy would be finished today.
Mark Paul Drouin, 48, of Berlin was discovered in his cell in Concord about 7:30 a.m. Sunday during the morning population count, said prison spokesman Jeff Lyons. No details about his death have been released because of the pending autopsy.
Drouin was serving a 15- to 30-year sentence for attempted second- degree murder as well as a 7 1/2- to 15-year sentence for first- degree assault. He also had a 10- to 30-year sentence to finish for seriously assaulting a sheriff’s deputy in 1995, the day of his conviction.
Drouin had been at the prison since 1993, when he began serving time for being a felon in possession of a gun, Lyons said.
Lyons would not comment on when Drouin was last seen alive but said guards conduct four checks a day, with the last usually happening about 11 p.m. Drouin was a medium-security inmate, meaning he was part of the prison’s general population and allowed to be out of his cell for most of the day if he chose, Lyons said.
Lyons said he did not know whether Drouin had any health conditions.
Drouin was convicted of attempted second-degree murder in 1995 for shooting 34-year-old James Samson of Lancaster in the back with a .30-30 rifle. Drouin did so after fighting with Samson about Samson’s dog running loose, according to a 1995 Union Leader article.
After he shot Samsom, Drouin reportedly told him, “Lay there and die you . . .,” the Union Leader reported.
At the time, Samson’s brother, Ed Samson, was police chief of Lancaster.
At Drouin’s sentencing, John Stephen, then a prosecutor with the state attorney general’s office, detailed Drouin’s criminal history. It included assaults, such as one against his wife when she was seven months pregnant and another in which he cut the buttocks of a girlfriend’s 2-year-old child with a belt, the paper reported.
About 40 minutes after Drouin was convicted of attempted murder in Coos County Superior Court in 1995, he emerged from a courthouse bathroom and punched out a sheriff’s deputy, according to news accounts. Drouin had been unshackled to use the bathroom.
Drouin then attempted to grab the deputy’s gun, telling other officers to back off because he wanted to shoot himself, according to the Union Leader’s account at the time.
The deputy Drouin punched suffered a fractured skull and required surgery. Another deputy was also injured.
At Drouin’s sentencing for assaulting the deputies, Judge Harold Perkins told Drouin, “You are a physical menace to anyone you come in contact with, and frankly, when I’m told that there was no intent to be vicious or to hurt (the deputy you punched), I find that to be a joke.”
For those assaults, Drouin received the additional 10 to 30 years in prison. The sentence was to be served after the others for attempted murder and the other assault. Drouin began serving that sentence the day he died, Lyons said.
Copyright 2010 Concord Monitor