Better training for police officers, stronger accountability for offenders and a more responsive court system are a few of the areas New Hampshire should focus on to prevent domestic violence killings, according to a new report.
These recommendations come from the first report by the state’s domestic violence fatality review committee, which was created by law in 2025 after the murder of Marisol Fuentes-Huaracha, 25, in Berlin.
Fuentes-Huaracha was fatally shot by her estranged husband, and her death revealed failures in both law enforcement and the judicial system that could have saved her life. Her case was the first the 16-member committee reviewed.
“This Committee gives New Hampshire a stronger, multidisciplinary process for examining these cases and identifying opportunities to save lives,” Attorney General John Formella said in a statement on Monday. “No single agency can solve this problem alone. The work does not end with this report; it begins here. The New Hampshire Department of Justice is committed to working with our partners across the Granite State to put these recommendations into action.”
Since different judges can view similar facts and come to different assessments of danger, the committee recommended exploring adopting an evidence-based risk assessment tool rather than relying only on the details of a particular case.
A structured tool could offer judges a more consistent way to identify warning signs and gauge danger to victims.
“Judges make decisions every day that affect whether a victim is safe,” said Amanda Grady Sexton, one of the committee members. “They need reliable tools to help them recognize patterns of abuse and the risk of serious or lethal violence, whether they are hearing a criminal case or a request for a protective order.”
An internal review found that the courts had enough evidence to deny bail to Michael Gleason Jr. before he killed Fuentes-Huaracha. Instead, he was released on $5,000 bail, a decision many advocates point to as a moment when her death could have been prevented.
The report states that the committee reviewed two domestic violence fatalities, but the Department of Justice has chosen to keep the details of the second case confidential.
Internal investigations by Berlin police and the courts have laid out what went wrong in Fuentes-Huaracha’s case. With the second case sealed from view, it remains unclear whether similar failures occurred between the agencies involved.
“Because the Committee’s case reviews are confidential, we are not identifying the second case or providing additional identifying information about either review beyond what has already been made public,” said Michael Garrity, the Department of Justice’s director of communications.
Warning signs
More than half of New Hampshire’s homicides are tied to domestic violence.
According to the state Department of Justice, 44 domestic violence homicides were committed in New Hampshire between 2022 and 2025. Of those, 22 victims were killed by a family member, 20 by an intimate partner and two others died in domestic violence-related incidents.
Most of the domestic violence homicides were murder-suicides.
In its report, the committee also calls for closer collaboration among police, prosecutors and advocates, as well as the creation of domestic violence high-risk response teams.
It recommends training dispatchers and call takers on the dynamics of domestic violence, and it pushes the Department of Justice and the Police Standards and Training Council to jointly develop a program that teaches officers to identify, investigate, charge and prove violations of domestic violence protective orders.
Officers would also be trained to respond to police reports that raise concern.
Two days before Fuentes-Huaracha was killed, a Berlin police officer was notified that a friend of Gleason’s feared he was a danger to himself and his estranged wife.
But after a phone call with Gleason that lasted less than two minutes, the officer wrongly concluded he posed no threat to either of them.
An internal investigation later called the handling of that welfare check a “glaring failure.”
“It is critical that we improve protections for victims of domestic violence so that our state never sees another tragedy like the murder of Marisol Fuentes in Berlin,” said Gov. Kelly Ayotte in a statement after the report was released. “I look forward to working together to implement these recommendations and strengthen our laws so we can prevent future tragedies and ensure victims have the protection they deserve.”
