Jillian Collins was supposed to be home on Halloween to take her two young sons trick-or-treating.
She had been staying in Concord off and on and never made it back home to Barnstead that night.
When her husband, Kevin Collins, tried calling, every attempt went straight to voicemail. Eventually, the phone just went completely silent. Kevin figured maybe her phone had died.
The following day, Kevin got a call from a number he didn’t recognize and he answered it just to be sure. It was the Concord Police Department on the other end. They had grave news.
“It couldn’t be. It couldn’t happen. I thought it was a nightmare and I’m going to wake up,” Kevin said. “They got the wrong person, I was hoping.”
Jillian, 37, had been found dead in a wooded area off Manchester Street, near the Soucook River and the New Hampshire Liquor Outlet, close to the Pembroke town line. The site was near what appeared to be a homeless encampment.
Jillian and Kevin met in 2015 and married three years later. They lived in Barnstead with Jillian’s father.
She was a good mother who loved spending time with her family, Kevin Collins said.
Yet, in the months before her death, Jillian had been struggling with unemployment and substance abuse issues.
Jillian had been spending more time around homeless encampments. She was last seen at home on the Monday before police said she was found shot to death in the woods.
Kevin remembered her as the mother she wanted to be. She was five-feet-two-inches tall, with blue eyes and brown hair. He said their relationship was strong, and Jillian cherished every moment with their two boys, both under the age of 10. She loved taking them to the park, doing crafts, and simply being together.
“She’s a great mother. We’re going to miss her,” he said.
This is the third time someone has been shot in the area of a homeless encampment in Concord this year.
For Kevin, coming to terms with his wife’s passing was difficult, but what was even harder was finding the words to tell their two young sons.
After speaking with school counselors who offered guidance on how to approach the conversation, Kevin and his mother finally sat down with the boys on Tuesday to share the heartbreaking news.
“I kept putting it off and putting it off. It was really hard for me,” said Kevin. “We told them, ‘Mommy’s up in heaven with Nana.’”
Kevin’s mother said one of the boys was full of questions, while the other stayed unusually quiet, trying to process it all in his own way.