Victim's son testifies on first day of Sapry murder-insanity trial

LACONIA — During his opening statement in the second murder trial of Hassan Sapry on Tuesday morning, state prosecutor Alexander Kellermann told jurors Sapry used knives, forks, a sword, the glass window of an oven and a small television to kill Wilfred Guzman Sr. on an early April morning in 2019.

Sapry, 27, is charged with nine counts, including first- and second-degree murder, in the 2019 death of Guzman Sr. in his Blueberry Lane apartment. Kellermann and attorney Jeffery Strelzin represent the State of New Hampshire in the case.

Attorneys Mark Sisti and Amy Ashworth of Sisti Law Offices are tasked with defending Sapry, and said previously they intend to invoke a not guilty by reason of insanity defense, an affirmative one in which the burden of proof rests entirely on the defense team.

“The evidence will show that the defendant can’t meet that burden, because he wasn’t insane and he planned the attack,” Kellermann said. 

Tuesday morning in Belknap County Superior Court, Kellermann told jurors the attack — which occurred just after midnight on April 18 — lasted 10 to 12 minutes, and ended Guzman Sr.’s life. Immediately afterward, Kellermann said, Sapry stole Guzman Sr.’s cellphone, wallet and credit cards, among other items, before eventually leaving the apartment and returning to his home on nearby Pleasant Street, throwing Guzman Sr.’s cellphone into Lake Winnisquam along Gale Avenue on his way.

By all accounts, Sapry apparently arrived at the Blueberry Lane residence of Guzman Sr. at about 10:30 p.m. the night before. He visited with Guzman Sr. in his apartment, watching television and having a conversation, until Guzman Sr. invited him into the kitchen. It was there Sapry attacked him, first with a kitchen knife — which broke upon the first strike — and then with other standard domestic implements, whatever he could find.

At some point during the struggle, Guzman Sr. attempted to open a door to the apartment to escape. Sapry apparently dragged Guzman Sr. back into the kitchen and locked the door with the deadbolt before continuing the attack, Kellermann said. That’s about when Sapry allegedly slammed Guzman Sr.’s head into the glass window of the kitchen oven, shattering it. 

Guzman Sr. suffered over 150 wounds, Kellermann said. 

According to the argument made on behalf of the state, Sapry became enraged because of comments Guzman Sr. had made previously, pertaining to race and religion, and they’d also had an argument immediately preceding the attack. Kellermann noted Sapry apparently donned black gloves when he came to visit the apartment, and didn’t remove them through the entirety of their interaction. 

“So angry that the defendant just wouldn’t let it go,” Kellermann said.

“He knew when he argued that night that he was going to kill Wilfred.”

Guzman Sr.’s son Wilfred Guzman Jr. was one of four witnesses to testify Tuesday afternoon. He said he’d come with his family to visit his father ahead of Easter weekend in 2019. He arrived late at night and wasn’t able to reach his father. The next morning Guzman Jr. returned, still unable to contact his father, and asked the Laconia Police Department to conduct a welfare check. That’s when police discovered Guzman Sr.'s body.

Sisti disputed the claim that Sapry acted out of anger regarding a religious disagreement during his opening statement Tuesday morning.

“Wilfred Guzman did not deserve to die,” Sisti said, noting he was a friend and mentor to Sapry and the father of one of Sapry’s close friends, and Guzman Sr. did nothing to cause Sapry to kill him.

“It’s an overblown motive,” Sisti said. “It’s a killing that was senseless.”

Sisti told jurors that, on the night in question, Sapry was driving around Laconia in the throes of depression, having spent three months suffering with serious post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and experiencing homicidal ideation. He’d quit attending school, quit his job and wouldn’t speak with friends or family. 

“He dropped out, and it wasn’t because of a religious argument with Wilfred Guzman,” Sisti said. “These motives are going to fall by the wayside, because they’re weak, they’re unsubstantiated.”

Sapry had access to firearms in his own home, Sisti said, but didn’t use them that night, instead using kitchen items, the oven door and a broken chair.

“I wonder if there was any thought at all involved,” Sisti said. “He wasn’t hatching a plan. He was suffering, and suffering deeply.”

That suffering, perhaps a product of mental illness, started decades ago while Sapry was a young child in Baghdad, Iraq, at the height of war there, Sisti said. Executions were televised under Saddam Hussein, as were brutalities inflicted upon a cowed population, to maintain regime control. 

Iraqis who were too friendly with American soldiers, for example, were made to be examples. That’s what happened to Sapry’s father, who Sisti said was kidnapped and beaten before being left on the family’s lawn.

Sapry was also apparently witness to a suicide bombing in his school, which killed classmates including his best friend, and a car bombing while he and his fathered traveled along an Iraqi road. The family eventually fled to Syria, then the United States. 

“Nobody’s making an excuse,” Sisti said. “Knives, forks, spoons, tongs, you name it. It was madness — absolute frenzied madness. It is a true display of insanity.

“No sane individual would have killed his best friend for no reason.”