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Monday, September 23, 2024

The Celina Cass Murder Case

     In July 2011 eleven-year-old Celina Cass lived in West Stewartstown, New Hampshire, a village of 800 in the northern part of the state not far from the Vermont/Canadian border. She resided in an apartment with her mother Louisa, her stepfather Wendell Noyes, her 13-year-old sister Kayla and 22-year-old Kevin Mullaney, the son of her mother's former boyfriend.

    Luisa Cass, on July 26, 2011, reported Celina missing. The mother last saw her daughter at nine the previous night before Celina and Kayla slept over at a friend's house. (Details of what happened that night and exactly when Celina went missing were sketchy.)

     Celina's disappearance triggered a massive search that involved 100 police officers, hundreds of searchers, police dogs and thousands of missing person posters. The FBI posted a $25,000 reward.

     At ten-thirty in the morning of August 1, 2011 a person spotted a body at the edge of the Connecticut River about a half mile from Celina Cass' apartment. The corpse, found at a popular fishing spot near a dam and a railroad trestle, turned out to be the missing girl. (For some reason emergency personnel did not pull the body out of the river until ten-thirty that night.)

     The medical examiner, without revealing the cause of death, ruled the case a criminal homicide. Following the autopsy a mortician cremated the corpse. 

     Within a few months following the murder Louisa Cass and Wendell Noyes, her 47-year-old husband, separated. In 2003 psychiatrists diagnosed Mr. Noyes with paranoid schizophrenia and committed him to a state mental facility. The diagnosis and commitment took place after he broke into the home of an ex-girlfriend and threatened to hurt her. After that commitment and release Mr. Noyes was in and out of several psychiatric wards.

     On January 10, 2012 police officers arrested Kevin Mullaney, the son of Louisa Cass' former boyfriend. The 22-year-old stood accused of a variety of crimes that included forging Lousia Cass' signature on a $250 check. Officers booked him into the Coos County Jail on charges of receiving stolen property, reckless conduct and possession of a weapon by a felon.

     A jury on June 12, 2012, found Kevin Mullaney guilty as charged. The judge sentenced him to two to six years in prison.

     In December 2013 with the Celina Cass murder still unsolved the apartment she and her family resided in went up in flames. No one was hurt. (The cause and origin of that fire was not publicly revealed.) Louisa and her daughter Kayla moved in with Kevin Mullaney's father.

     Residents of the New Hampshire community were frustrated that the Celina Cass murder case remained unsolved. New Hampshire Senior Assistant Attorney General Jane Young told an Associated Press reporter in July 2015 that the case was still being actively investigated. However, Marcia Laro, the victim's paternal grandmother told that reporter that she hadn't spoken to an investigator for well over a year.

     The New Hampshire Attorney General's office on June 20, 2016 announced that detectives working on the Cass case had arrested Wendell Noyes, the victim's stepfather. Louisa Cass, the girl's mother, in speaking to a local television reporter, said, "I hope he rots."

    In February 2017 the state attorney general's office dropped the murder charge against the 54-year-old Wendell Noyes on the ground he was mentally unfit to stand trial. Instead Mr. Noyes was committed to the state psychiatric hospital for a minimum of five years. If at any point the patient's doctors considered him mentally fit the murder charge could be refiled. As of September 2024 Mr. Noyes had not been charged with murdering Celina Cass. With a long history of mental illness it was unlikely Wendell Noyes would ever be tried for this murder. Officials with the state when asked by reporters if Mr. Noyes was still a psychiatric patient did not respond.

2 comments:

  1. Something is very wrong with this investigation and the amount of time to solve it. Outraged!

    ReplyDelete
  2. The step father was arrested Spring of 2016.

    ReplyDelete