Havlock not guilty of negligent homicide

A jury in Belknap County Superior Court yesterday found a young woman not guilty of causing the death of a Meredith teenager in Sept. of 2003. The state had tried to convince jurors that Amanda Havlock, 24, was guilty of negligent homicide because she had provided Joshua Titara, 17, with the supply of the narcotic methadone that killed him.

At the time of the accidental death, Havlock was living in an apartment on Red Gate Lane in Meredith. Titara died on the sofa in her apartment.

The jury reached its verdict after deliberating for about and hour and one-half. The trial itself lasted three days.

Judge Larry Smukler had instructed jurors that to find Havlock guilty of the crime they had to be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that she had caused Titara's death and that in so doing she had acted in a manner that was a gross deviation from what a normal person would done under the same circumstances.

No one testified to witnessing Havlock provide the teenager with methadone. A friend of Titara's, Jarred Kemps, did testify that on the day of Titara's death Havlock had offered and then supplied him with a prescription methadone wafer in return for a ride to Laconia so she could get a new supply.

Havlock had been taking methadone to ease back pain that resulted from a childhood auto accident. She had no active prescription or physician of record at the time of the incident but Dr. Brian Jeffries testified that he wrote her a 90-count prescription when she came to the Walk-In Care Center at Lakes Region General Hospital. Jeffries said his intent was to give her a large enough supply to carry her to an appointment she had made with a new physician.

Havlock did not testify in her own defense. In fact, her attorney from the public defender's office, Jessica Brown, called no witnesses at all.

In her summation, Brown told jurors that state's young witnesses were not credible and suggested they jointly decided to blame Havlock for their friend's death. She insisted that Havlock had not supplied Titara with any methadone on Sept. 4, only a place to sleep.

For the state, County Attorney Lauren Noether concluded her case by telling jurors that though Titara had not meant to kill the teenager, she had freely given him some of her powerful drugs knowing the risks they posed.

Negligent homicide is a Class B felony. If she had been found guilty, Havlock would have been facing a prison sentence of 3-1/2 to seven years.