3 plead guilty in New Hampshire murder plot

By JOHN CURRAN

TheAssociated Press

NORTH HAVERHILL, N.H. — It was a murder plot hatched over what happened at a Wal-Mart.

Christopher Gray, a developmentally disabled cashier, had eyes for 17-year-old Amber Talbot. She worked in the health and beauty aids department — and she already had a boyfriend. Gray, 25, flirted with her and sometimes followed her around in the store, she told her boyfriend.

Gray made no secret of it. He told her friend, Timothy Smith, who worked at a Subway sandwich shop inside the store, that he was interested in her, and about the things he'd like to do with her. Smith told him to stop talking that way.

Furious over what he was hearing but locked up in county jail on an unrelated charge, boyfriend Michael Robie, Talbot and Smith hatched a plot to kill Gray, using Talbot as the bait, according to three defendants who acknowledged they played a part in Gray's killing.

On Oct. 6, 2008, police say, they followed the plan. Talbot invited Gray to watch movies at her home. Once there, Smith, 24, and cousin Anthony Howe, 19, said they stabbed and strangled Gray as they stood around a bonfire. On Monday, Talbot, Smith and Howe pleaded guilty to conspiracy and second-degree murder in exchange for long prison terms.

Robie, 19, has not admitted any role in the killing and is awaiting trial.

"It's such a waste of a young life," said Gray's aunt, Shirley Kingsbury. "It's just a brutal, violent murder. It didn't need to take place over a stupid jealousy."

Gray, an aspiring auto mechanic with a low IQ, attention deficit disorder and a speech impediment, attended special schools when he was young and lived in Groton, Vt., with a legal guardian who was once his care provider.

His interest in Talbot blossomed at the Wal-Mart in nearby Woodsville, N.H.

On the night of the killing, Talbot — accompanied by Smith and Howe — picked Gray up after work and drove all four to her home.

After building a bonfire, Smith and Howe set upon Gray, according to prosecutor Jeffery Strelzin. Howe grabbed Gray from behind and started choking him, and Smith pulled a knife and stabbed him. Gray, crying, tried to resist — he had defensive wounds from the knife on one hand — before collapsing.

Smith stabbed him more than 30 times, bending the handle of the kitchen knife he was using, before pulling out a folding knife to finish the job, according to an autopsy that also showed signs of strangulation.

The alibi — that the three had dropped Gray off at a nearby boat launch — unraveled quickly.

Police used Wal-Mart surveillance footage to identify the people with Gray when he left work. After lying to police initially, Talbot and Smith admitted to the plot. Smith wrote a letter of apology to Gray's family in which he admitted stabbing him.

Investigators also obtained recordings of jailhouse phone conversations between Robie and Talbot in which they discussed the plot.

Howe, a short, baby-faced 19-year-old with the body of a linebacker, eventually admitted his role, too.

On Monday, each stood shackled at the waist and the feet for nearly identical plea hearings in Grafton Superior Court.

Talbot got 23 to 50 years, with the possibility of an earlier release if she gets a high-school equivalency diploma and other education in prison. Smith and Howe got 40 years to life, also with the potential for earlier releases if they complete education courses.

Formal sentencing was delayed until Robie's case is resolved.

Gray's family members and friends watched quietly from the gallery, several wearing big lapel buttons bearing his smiling face and the words "Remember Chris for Justice Sake."

His brother, David Kemp, briefly ducked out of each hearing so he wouldn't have to listen to Strelzin describe Gray's wounds.

"It's senseless, it's sad," said Gray's guardian, Annie Crowley. "It's a very sad and disgusting thing."

His father, Michael Gray, said the terms of the plea were a disappointment.

"I don't think 100 years would be enough, just for the fact that he's gone and they're still alive, and we gotta feed 'em, keep 'em alive," he said. "That's the sad part."

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September 28, 2009 08:15 PM EDT

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