Police investigating 2 homicides in Laconia, unrelated; no threat to community

LACONIA — The state Attorney General’s Office is assisting Laconia police in investigating two homicides in the city, and officers took one person into custody in one of those cases on Tuesday night. 

Originally reported as a suspicious death on South Main Street on Tuesday morning, that case turned into a homicide investigation Tuesday night, according to Police Chief Matt Canfield.

Tuesday afternoon, a spokesperson for the state Attorney General's Office said members of its office and the New Hampshire State Police Major Crime Unit were responding to the reported suspicious death in the 200 block of South Main.

Laconia police were performing a welfare check at the South Main home Tuesday morning, and found an adult male resident deceased there.

The circumstances surrounding the death are under investigation, but on Tuesday night, Canfield wrote in an email that it became a homicide investigation, and Laconia police requested state assistance. In a media release, a NH Department of Justice spokesperson wrote there was no known threat to the public.

The deceased person has not been identified, pending notification of their family. An autopsy was scheduled for Wednesday. DOJ spokesperson Michael Garrity didn’t immediately return inquiries.

While police were still at the South Main scene, at 1:38 p.m. on April 14, officers were dispatched to Old Prescott Hill Road. When they arrived, officers found Linda Dionne, 58, deceased inside a home. Officers also found her son, Christopher Garon, 32, according to a DOJ release.

Officers charged Garon with second-degree murder for recklessly causing the death of Dionne, showing “extreme indifference to the value of human life.”

Anyone charged with a crime is presumed innocent until proven guilty in court.

Earlier Tuesday, an Attorney General’s Office spokesperson said the office was investigating the Old Prescott Hill incident as a suspicious death, and there was no known connection to the South Main death.

Garon is held without bail, and a formal reading of the charges will be held in Laconia District Court.