CONCORD — Six suspects accused of kidnapping a woman out of Claremont over drugs in January have been federally indicted.
New charges by a grand jury on Sept. 16 supersede previous indictments against Damarcus Bonner, of Hartford, Conn., Tyron Harris, of Holyoke, Mass., and Nicole Palardy, of Claremont, from earlier this year, and include three other people who police believe were involved in the crimes.
“The indictment indicates that the kidnapping was part of a pre-existing drug operation
that involved drug activity at multiple locations in several states,” stated a Sept. 21 news release by the New Hampshire Department of Justice.
On Jan. 25, police responded to a reported hostage situation and pinged a phone to 950 Randall Hill Road, a Springfield, Vt., residence, according to an affidavit filed in Windsor Superior Court. At the scene, they arrested Bonner, 31, Harris, 27, Palardy, 36, Jessenialyz Jones, 19, and Sheldon Stocker, 38.
A 36-year-old woman rescued from the residence told police that she met up with Palardy to purchase drugs in Claremont, only to be forced into a vehicle by Bonner and Harris, the affidavit stated. The four of them — with Jesse Emerson, 38, driving — traveled to Springfield, where the victim recalled being held in a basement, according to the affidavit.
Throughout her approximately 24 hours in captivity, the victim said she had been burned by a hot knife, waterboarded and struck, according to body camera footage. The perpetrators accused her of stealing $4,000 worth of drugs from them and demanded money using her phone, she told police.
The first count — conspiracy to possess a controlled substance with intent to distribute — applied to all six suspects: Bonner, Harris, Palardy, Jones, of Massachusetts, Emerson, of Springfield, Vt., and Sheldon Stocker, a resident at Randall Hill Road.
The Grand Jury determined that at least as early as 2024, those six people intentionally conspired to distribute a substance containing cocaine base, heroin and fentanyl. They also found that in January, Stocker arranged for Bonner and Harris to distribute cocaine and heroin out of the Springfield home where the victim was held hostage, per the indictment.
The second count charged Damarcus and Bonner with aiding and abetting kidnapping for abducting the victim and holding her against her will across state lines for ransom, per the indictment.
The third count charged Harris, Bonner, Jones and Palardy with conspiracy to commit kidnapping for their roles in traveling from Vermont to New Hampshire to seize the victim, for transporting her, injuring her and demanding money from someone on her Facebook, per the indictment.
The fourth and fifth counts charged Harris and Bonner with possessing a firearm in relation to a drug trafficking crime, the indictment stated. The maximum sentence across all five counts is life imprisonment or imprisonment for any number of years.
All six suspects remain in custody across different facilities, according to Vermont’s inmate locator. Stocker, Emerson and Jones all have initial appearances set for Friday afternoon in Concord before U.S. Magistrate Judge Talesha Saint-Marc, as noted in court filings.
