Final witness says Cassavuagh's neighbor talked about murders

The presentation of relevant information in the double murder trial of 29-year-old Kirk Cassavaugh concluded in Belknap County Superior Court yesterday with testimony from a Belmont woman that seemed to add support to earlier statements made by the state’s star witness.

Earlier in the week, Mark Thomson, who was temporarily living in a Winnebago recreation vehicle parked in Cassavaugh’s yard on Horne Road in Belmont, told the jury he believed the young man murdered his girlfriend Jennifer Huard, 26, and her brother Jeremiah “Jeremy” L. Huard, 29, both of Gilford, on September 20, 2006. He said he observed the two men fighting, that he thought he saw Cassavaugh drag Jennifer Huard’s limp body out of his trailer, and that he later asked for advice on how to get rid of two dead bodies.

On Friday Cecilia “C” Columb collaborated Thomson’s testimony about what said he saw in those early morning hours.

Columb was a friend — and sometimes girlfriend — of a Franklin man known as “One-Eyed” Jack Vincent, a member of the local group of illegal drug users. She said she and Vincent were at Cassavaugh’s trailer home on Horne Road in Belmont earlier that day where they smoked some crack cocaine with Cassavaugh. The couple later left and returned to a friend’s home in Franklin at 4:30 a.m.

“I remember the time because I remember thinking I couldn’t believe it was 4:30 in the morning,” Columb said. “It was so late.”

Some time later Thomson called to tell Vincent he believed he’d seen evidence that Cassavaugh had killed two people, including Jennifer Huard.

Columb said she and Vincent found the story difficult to believe so they arranged to meet Thomson alongside Rte. 140, next to a building near the local Coca-Cola bottling plant in Belmont.

“Mark was very nervous,” Columb recalled. “He said he believed he’d witnessed a possible crime… He believed he witnessed the murders of Jen and Jeremy. He said he could tell a dead person and Kirk dragged somebody out of the trailer and her head bumped off the stairs.

“And then Kirk went to Mark’s trailer afterwards and asked Mark how to get rid of dead bodies,” she continued. “He (Mark) said they needed to be burned.

“He was adamant that he had witnessed these murders,” Columb added. “He was very nervous, very upset. He wanted us to go back to trailer in Belmont and I said absolutely no way. He needed to go to police right away.”

In Thomson testimony earlier in the trial, he said that around 4 a.m. on Sept. 20 he looked out his window and saw Cassavaugh assaulting Jeremy Huard. “Don’t kill him,” he reported yelling out to Cassavaugh, and the young man responded by turning off the exterior light in front of his house.

Thomson also said he saw Cassavaugh pull what appeared to be the body of Jennifer Huard out the front door of his home, bumping her head on the wooden steps.

He also said Cassavaugh later came to him to ask how to get rid of the bodies.

Thomson said that the best way was to burn them, and then used an excuse to get away from the residence in his .

Some hours later he approached police with his information about the murders.

Police found the Huards in two burn piles behind Cassavaugh’s home that same day but he claims he’s innocent. In his attorney’s opening statement at the beginning of the trial, Public Defender Martha Hornick said the Huards were killed by other people in the group who then manipulated evidence to make Cassavaugh look like the killer. The real cause of the murders, she said, was related to a “drug deal gone bad.”

But Columb testified Friday that in the parking lot off Rte. 140 that Sept. 20, 2006 morning, Thomson called Cassavaugh on a cell phone and put the instrument on “speaker” mode in order to let Vincent hear the conversation.

The RV owner tried to get “more information out of Kirk,” apparently related to the deaths, Columb said, “but Kirk didn’t really say anything.”

Vincent and Columb were still somewhat incredulous about what Thomas said he’d seen earlier that day but they urged him to go straight to the police. “It was like something in a movie,” she added, explaining why she did not go to the police herself.

Thomson said he would to officials but first wanted to travel to Concord to get a methadone dose at a clinic where he was being treated.

“I know there was some hours he had to go there by and I think it was before noon,” Columb recalled.

Columb said that later Thomson acted as if the whole story he told was not serious but he did eventually go to Loudon Police and told them about what he’d seen.

Under cross-examination from one of Cassavaugh’s attorney, Public Defender Caroline Smith, Columb may have added some credibility to the defense’s argument that their client did not kill the Huards.

Columb said hours before the murders she and Vincent went to visit Cassavaugh’s trailer in Belmont in hopes of finding some drugs. The young man said he didn’t have any but could get some if he could borrow Columb’s car for a short trip. Not long afterwards, he returned with a bag of crack cocaine that he, Vincent and Columb smoked in Cassavaugh’s bedroom.

Sometime later Jeremy Huard and Jeff Tarallo of Laconia arrived at the trailer and asked Vincent if he could help them back some money they felt had been “ripped off” from them.

Vincent agreed and the trio left. They returned not long afterwards with their mission apparently accomplished.

Although Columb did not say so directly, Huard and Tarallo may have thought of going to “One-Eyed” Jack Vincent for help because he was known to sometimes carry weapons. Columb said he regularly carried a hammer and sometimes carried a two-sided “hunter’s knife.”

On Thursday, a state forensic expert testified that a two-sided knife caused the stab wounds that killed Jeremy Huard. Police were never able to locate the weapon.

While the three men were gone, Columb used her car to drive Cassavaugh to a local convenience store to buy cigarettes. During the drive she testified the young man said he was “upset with his relationship with Jennifer (Huard). He was really talking about that, and that was pretty much it. He was just saying they were fighting a lot and things weren’t going well between them, that Jen was unhappy with him.”

(Earlier in the trial, Bernie “Buck” Huard, the father of the Huard siblings, said his daughter moved her belongings out of Cassavaugh’s trailer just days before she was killed, and that he saw and heard evidence of a “combative” relationship between the couple.)

While Columb testified, defense attorney Smith occasionally spoke quietly and directly with Cassavaugh for a few moments. It was one of the few times the pair talked for more than a moment or two during the entire trial.

Columb was called as a rebuttal witness after the defense offered its case in court Thursday, arguing there were numerous elements that made the state’s charge that Cassavaugh was the killer doubtful.

Closing arguments in the trial are slated to take place Tuesday at 9 a.m. in the courthouse. Afterwards Judge Larry Smukler said the 16-member jury panel would be trimmed down to the requisite 12 members and they would begin deliberating Cassavaugh's fate.