CONCORD — The man found not guilty by reason of insanity for setting a 2004 fire that killed two Claremont residents was committed to psychiatric care for another five years on Monday in Merrimack Superior Court.
In an afternoon hearing that lasted just short of four minutes, Justice John C. Kissinger Jr. approved a sealed “recommittal stipulation” for Matthew Carignan, now 42 years old, who pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to two counts of first-degree murder of Lynn and Laurie Estep and seven counts of attempted murder for each tenant who escaped the October 2004 blaze.
“He’ll never see his charges. But I am glad that he is recommitted,” Emily Estep, who was 13 when her parents were killed in the fire, said at the courthouse in Concord on Monday.
Estep, now 34, living in West Lebanon and working as a client care and vet assistant at Stonecliff Animal Clinic, said that Monday’s hearing was the first she attended — “it’s every five years that we have to be here” — that was open to the public.
“I just want him to stay locked up,” Estep said. “He needs to be in a facility because it’s not safe for him to be anywhere.”
Carignan’s public defender, Ryan Gephart, declined to comment at the hearing.
Emily’s mother, Laurie, had worked in Claremont packing herbs at News England Herb and her father, Lynn, worked for U.S. Cellular in West Lebanon, the Valley News previously reported.
Laurie was 45 when she died in the 2004 fire, which police said Carignan caused by using a cigarette lighter to ignite a canvas chair on the porch of the five-unit apartment building in Claremont.
Lynn was 41 when he succumbed to his injuries in a burn center three weeks after the fire.
Emily Estep and her older sister, Erica, were home during the fire which started burning in the pre-dawn hours of Oct. 7, 2004, but escaped unharmed.
“Our dad came out after, and my sister and I just kept yelling, ‘Where’s mom?’,” Estep told the Valley News in 2016. “I remember my dad looking around for her and he tried to run back in after her, but the flames pushed him right back out.”
She then detailed how her father, with the last of his energy, helped save a neighbor’s baby.
“They were just lovely, loving parents,” Emily Estep said. “They took anybody, like in Claremont; we were on Wall Street, and the other street behind all the kids came to my house. My parents had them. They were just very loving and understanding people that had everybody’s back when they needed it.”
Every five years, a hearing is held to determine whether Carignan, who according to past court documents suffered brain damage in infancy and has been diagnosed with several disorders, including “impulse control disorder and pyromania features,” remains a danger to the public.
In March 2005, Carignan, then 22, was sentenced by a Sullivan County Superior Court judge to spend at least five years in the psychiatric unit of the state prison, with the eligibility for a hearing every five years to determine whether he should remain at the unit or be discharged under supervised release for the rest of his life, the Valley News reported at the time.
Carignan’s plea of not guilty by insanity to the two counts of first-degree murder and seven counts of attempted murder means he admitted to setting the fatal fire, but cannot be held criminally responsible.
The state had no choice given Carignan’s lengthy history of mental illness and the review of two psychiatrists of his culpability, the Attorney General’s office stated in 2005.
“How did these two victims become a footnote to his mental condition?” James Estep, brother of the late Lynn Estep who died in the fire, said in 2005.
Initially, Carignan was confined to the Secure Psychiatric Unit at the New Hampshire State Prison. He was transferred to a “step-down” unit at the state psychiatric hospital in 2016.
The Valley News attempted to reach the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office to find out where Carignan is living but did not receive an immediate response.
In an email, Estep said that Carignan “was transferred to Next Steps in Bethlehem, N.H., which is a step down (unit) not prison (in) 2023.”
According to Next Steps’ website, the facility “provides therapeutic residential services to adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, mental health conditions, and other behavioral health needs.”
“Safe travels back home,” Judge Kissinger Jr. said as Carignan, wearing a protective helmet, was dismissed Monday.
Prosecutor Charles Bucca declined to discuss the current recommittal stipulation, which is sealed “because of the psychiatric nature of some of the information contained.” But he did explain the recommittal process when a person is found not guilty by reason of insanity in New Hampshire.
“Depending on the level of treatment they need and the progress that they make, people sometimes transition to lower levels at different facilities, but throughout the entirety of the person’s commitment, they’re subject to the jurisdiction of the (secure psychiatric unit of the state hospital) and that jurisdiction extends for five-year periods of time,” Bucca said.
Every five years, the court has to make a determination as to whether or not the individual is still in need of the same care and the same treatment, or whether they should be discharged.
“The attorney general’s office is responsible for tracking cases and making sure that those hearings such as occurred today, occur on a regular basis within the statutory time frame,” he said.
The judge determines whether the individual is still suffering from the mental disorder that contributed to committing the original offense.
“There was a stipulation agreed to, between my office and the defense; we’ve stipulated that the factors have been met and he should be recommitted for an additional five year period of time,” he said.
It doesn’t get easier for Estep to return to court for Carignan’s recommitment hearings. Even if he ultimately has been recommitted each time.
But, she said, she feels her parents are by her side at each proceeding.
“My parents wouldn’t want to see me at the bottom, so I’ve always said that my parents are watching and I have to make them proud,” Estep said.