1735
Granted as a township by colonial governor Jonathan Belcher in 1735 and named Number Nine.
about 0:05:35The story
Edith Meyer, known to everyone as Pen, was born in Boston on 4 July 1949, one of eleven children of a wealthy industrialist. The family had money, homes and a trust fund, but Pen was frightened of her disciplinarian father and left as soon as she could. She went to the Pingry School in South Hamilton, Massachusetts, then to Colby Sawyer College in New London, New Hampshire, graduating in 1970. In 1971 she married Colin Campbell, the man she had met at college, and they settled in Wilmot, New Hampshire, where they had three children, Justin, Kiera and Haley. Pen learned to weave and became a well-known figure in the state's artisan community, making napkins, mats and table runners. She and Colin divorced in 1985, and she moved back to New London, working part-time as a gardener and flower arranger. In 2001 she married Richard Rankin, a landscaper from Goshen. The marriage was unhappy: he was jealous, controlling and drank heavily, and they separated within three years. Pen bought a small rural house near the water in Goshen, made it her own, and supported herself with her weaving and yarn dyeing, selling at the Norwich farmers market. She was active in the Lake Sunapee Protective Association and the Friends of Mount Sunapee. She lived alone with her beloved sheepdog, Fluff, and was known for hiking, swimming, canoeing and for the snow angels she made in neighbours' gardens.
Pen had struggled privately with alcohol, which she later said was her way of coping with sexual abuse suffered in childhood. In the mid-1990s she was hospitalised after a nervous breakdown, began therapy, gave up drinking for good and joined Alcoholics Anonymous. She remained a committed member, supporting other women in recovery. In 2004, after her separation from Rankin, she began a relationship with Jonathan Purick, a man she met at an Al-Anon meeting in Newport.
His parents, Bud and Bernice, later bought a drive-in cinema. Ken was popular, a strong football player, and by his own account liked hitting people. He married and divorced twice, had a son, moved between construction and labouring jobs, and stopped drinking in 1981. He became a keen AA member and sponsor, though friends noticed that he used meetings to meet vulnerable women. In 2000 he began dating Harvey, known as Harv, a nurse's aide and devout churchgoer, and they married in 2003 at Millie's Place, an AA meeting venue in a Newport strip mall. They moved to a cottage in Lempster. When confronted by the loss-prevention officer, Terry Casey, he told her 'this never happened', offered her stolen crisps and then suggested sex with no strings attached.
He was attracted to her vulnerability, told her his marriage was over and began an affair, though he never left Harv. He followed her, turned up at her home and at her workplace, and was warned by her brother Greg and by Newport police. On 9 December a temporary protective order was granted, made permanent on 13 December. On 4 January 2005 he pushed his way into the home of Frederick Evans, angry about the stalking petition.
Witnesses at AA said he called her a traitor, pulled a man away from her for hugging her, and on three occasions Pen reported him to Goshen police, once after he followed her home and screamed at her. On the morning of 23 February 2005 he put his plan into action. She mentioned a chainsaw accident. Sandra could not make sense of it. Pen then failed to collect her friend Joanne DeFord for a dental appointment, something utterly out of character. That evening Jonathan Purick let himself into Pen's house, found her car in the garage, the lights on and Fluff inside, but no Pen. Nothing was disturbed and there was no blood. He played her answering machine and heard Sandra's message about the 'bombshell' of the morning call.
A neighbour reported seeing him burning brush on 24 February and hauling it an unusual distance to the pit beside his house. The box, at Lake Sunapee Bank, held Pen's jewellery, silverware and will.
On 3 March Sandra received a package postmarked 25 February containing a typed agreement, purportedly signed by Pen, transferring all her property to Sandra, and a $400 cheque marked 'for dog sitting'. Police also found orange duct tape matching the tape on the pay phone. In a blizzard they searched the fire pit in his yard, finding charred bone fragments, a ring, the frame of a pair of glasses, Pen's keys and distinctive jewellery. A medical examiner assembled about a third of a skeleton and concluded the remains were those of a small woman weighing 100 to 110 pounds. In a shed was a backpack containing gloves, a torch, a belt, superglue, a lighter, a lock, condoms, knives and tie-down cords.
It obsessed over Sandra and CSI, raged at Pen's interference, and contained drafts of the script Pen had read on the phone, including the pilot, the trip abroad and the instruction to drop the restraining order. There were also letters written as if from Pen, a sketch of a stick figure with a gun and a fire, and the line 'I never meant for it to go this far'. Harv admitted burning three notebooks in the wood stove and destroying other evidence, was granted immunity and testified. She also led police to a notepad and a Honda key hidden behind insulation, the key starting Pen's car.
The medical examiner stood by the combination of bones, dental records, jewellery and a gunshot wound to the back of the skull. Pen's ashes were never buried and their resting place is unknown.