Hanover couple's murder-suicide shocks friends

By KRISTEN SENZ
Union Leader Correspondent

HANOVER – An elderly couple was found dead in their downtown apartment and police are investigating the case as an apparent murder-suicide.

The bodies of Elliott Lewis, 84, and his wife, Barbara, 82, were discovered after their adult son went to check on his parents Monday evening at their 85 South Main St. apartment, which is inside a senior housing complex next to CVS Pharmacy. He hadn't heard from his parents in several days, and when he got no response at the apartment, he called police at 6:08 p.m., authorities said.

Investigators would not say how the couple died or who was believed to have committed the murder, pending the results of autopsies scheduled for this afternoon.

Senior Assistant Attorney General Kirsten Wilson said police were interviewing the Lewises' neighbors and relatives, and others who knew Elliott Lewis, a self-employed financial advisor. She declined to release any details about the scene police found inside the basement-level apartment.

Bob Haynes of R.E. Haynes Co., commercial and investment real estate, said he leased Lewis an office at the Wheeler Professional Park in West Lebanon, where he ran a financial consulting business, specializing in investments and insurance. Describing Lewis as "a very nice man," Haynes said he was shocked to hear about the deaths of Lewis and his wife.

"I knew he had been ill a few months ago, and his wife was, too," he said.

Working with the New Hampshire Attorney General's Office and the New Hampshire State Police Major Crimes Unit, Hanover police obtained several search warrants Monday evening, according to Hanover Police Chief Nick Giaccone. Investigators spent all night Monday and much of yesterday executing the warrants, police said. The search warrants, filed at Lebanon District Court, were sealed, according to a court clerk.

"This is a self-contained investigation and it is considered a murder-suicide," Giaccone said during a news conference late yesterday morning, adding that, "It was fairly obvious from the beginning" that it was a murder-suicide.

Tammy Willey, who said she has cleaned the Lewis apartment every Tuesday for the last three years, was at the senior housing complex yesterday morning. In addition to cleaning, Willey said, she helped fix things around the house, such as broken sinks and hinges, whenever Barbara Lewis called her.

"She always called me her guardian angel, because I was always coming to fix things for her," said Willey, who wiped tears from her eyes as she spoke in the apartment complex parking lot.

Willey said Elliott Lewis had a heart attack about five months ago, and that Barbara Lewis had recently suffered a mild stroke. Wilson said investigators were looking into both medical and financial issues as possible motives for the killings.

To their housekeeper, the Lewises seemed like a happy couple.

"He was there squeezing the orange juice on the old machine, and they would eat together every morning, just to make each other happy," Willey said. "They loved each other, it seemed to me, unconditionally."

In addition to crime scene investigators, a private crime scene cleanup company was at the Lewis apartment yesterday afternoon. Baycon Corp., which specializes in blood cleanup and hazardous waste removal, is based in North Reading, Mass., and has a satellite location in Alton, N.H., according to the company's Web site. The company's white "Special Projects Unit" truck was parked outside the senior housing complex around 4 p.m.

A company spokesman said he had been instructed by the New Hampshire Attorney General's Office not to comment on the Hanover case.

Wilson said the Lewises had two adult sons, one living in Vermont and another living out of state. Willey said one of their sons is Spencer Lewis of Bethel, Vt. He could not be reached for comment yesterday.

According to Wilson, victim advocates in the attorney general's office were trying to contact the couple's out-of-state relatives to notify them about the deaths yesterday.