MANCHESTER, NH – At the height of rush hour last month, Aliadi Rose Abreau drove her car at 80 mph through a busy Granite Street intersection, colliding head-first with another car and killing Michael Shattuck, her passenger and ex-fiance, according to a prosecutor.
A video of Abreau’s car speeding through the intersection and crashing into a 2019 BMW operated by Barbara Louise Letvinchuck, 64, was played during a hearing Wednesday in Hillsborough County Superior Court Northern District. Once hit, Letvinchuck’s car spun counter-clockwise and struck a 2013 Chevrolet Suburban operated by Austynn Trombley, 27. Three children were in Trombley’s vehicle.
Nichole Gibbs, Shattuck’s older sister, audibly gasped when video showed the collision. Then, she burst into tears.
Abreau, 35, of 15B Sunnyside Lane, Derry, is charged with reckless manslaughter; negligent homicide, and reckless conduct.
Shattuck died at the scene, even though bystanders pulled him from the car and performed CPR on him because he was unresponsive. Abreau was trapped in the mangled car. She was extricated and transported to the Elliot Hospital for treatment of serious injuries.
Assistant Hillsborough County Attorney Francis J. Coffey argued at the hearing that Abreau should be held without bail saying she is a danger to herself and to the safety of the public.
“The public needs to be protected from this defendant and the defendant needs to be protected from herself,” Coffey said. If Judge Amy Messer decides to not jail Abreau, Coffey asked that bail be set at $50,000 cash.
He also questioned whether Abreau intended to crash the car. Coffey said he had only learned that two weeks prior to the deadly collision, Abreau had attempted suicide.
Public Defender Shelagh O’Donnell, said evidence does not support that Abreau deliberately crashed the car. “This was an incredible tragedy,” she said.
She asked the judge to release Abreau on personal recognizance bail and into the care of her brother. One condition would be that she not drive.
“Preventive detention or $50,000 bail is not appropriate here,” O’Donnell said.
Abreau, she said, is a 35-year-old woman with no criminal record. She worked at Waypoint and NH Job Corps. “This is a woman who spent her professional career helping others,” she said.
Abreau is currently in a rehabilitation center but is expected to be released next week when her insurance runs out. “She will need wheelchair-level care,” O’Donnell said.
The type of care she needs is not available at the Valley Street jail, both attorneys agreed. However, Coffey asked the judge to order Abreau be detained in jail once she is ambulatory.
As of Wednesday, O’Donnell said Abreau can’t walk – she can’t put weight on her legs after suffering a broken femur and ankle. She underwent surgery for those injuries as well as an injury to her arm. About a month after the collision, she needs assistance to get out of bed and into a wheelchair, and to go to the bathroom. She will need both physical and occupational therapy.
Abreau did not attend the hearing but listened to the proceeding via telephone.
Coffey said the state did not want to interfere in Abreau’s medical treatment but wanted to ensure the public’s safety.
The night of the crash, when Abreau was at the hospital, in the intensive care unit, Officer Rachel Eutzy spoke to her. Abreau told him Shattuck was her fiancee but they had recently broken off their relationship, according to court documents. She and Shattuck were coming from work at New Hampshire Job Corps, 943 Dunbarton Road. Prior to the crash, she and Shattuck were having an argument about infidelity in their relationship. When asked how fast she was driving, she said, “Faster…80.” She also said that she and Shattuck had smoked marijuana inside her car prior to leaving Job Corps.
O’Donnell said the statements Abreau made to Eutzy are unreliable given she was in the intensive care unit and being prepped for surgery, including already receiving two injections of a sedative.
The collision happened at 5:04 p.m. at the Interstate 293 North off-ramp. According to court documents, Abreau was trapped in the 2012 Acura TI. Shattuck, 35, was pronounced dead at 5:32 p.m. An autopsy conducted the following day by Deputy Medical Examiner Dr. Mitchell Weisberg determined his cause of death was blunt trauma to the chest.
Officer Kyle Daly, in his affidavit for an arrest warrant, said Letvinchuck told police she was in the far left lane coming off the off-ramp from 293 North and was driving about 30 mph when Abreau collided with her head on. Letvinchuck said she had the green light.
Another witness, Tatum Bailey, 28, said as she was entering the off-ramp, she saw a car approaching her from the rear and then pass her going about 80 to 90 mph. She said the driver had her head down and was not looking ahead. She said the car was swerving on the off-ramp.
Bailey said she saw the vehicle earlier on the highway and it was not going at a fast rate of speed or swerving.
She said the car tried to turn east onto Granite Street at that high rate of speed and ultimately collided with the BMW head-on.
Trombley, the driver of the Chevy Suburban, said she was in the right lane heading west onto Granite Street after exiting I-293 North, when Abreau’s car came “flying” eastbound and hit the BMW. Her Chevy was hit in the rear left by the BMW.
Police recovered video from two different vehicles: a rear-facing camera from a Pinard Waste trash truck, that exited I-293 South at Granite St., and another from Riley Flint, 18, who was parked in the Granite Street Dunkin Donut Parking lot facing east.
Flint’s video was the one shown in court.
“In the dash cam video, you can see Abreu traveling at a high rate of speed southerly on the Interstate 293 off-ramp, fail to make the easterly turn and essentially travel across more than 6 lanes of travel where she makes impact with Letvinchuck. In this video, you can also hear the tires of Abreau’s vehicle losing traction with the roadway due to her speed while attempting an easterly turn,” Officer Daly wrote.
After the hearing, Gibbs said she was “very upset about it.” What was the most upsetting part about the hearing, she said, was how much of the discussion was about how Abreau was probably going to be under house arrest and not jailed.
Shattuck, she said, was an outgoing, fun person who made everybody laugh. He worked for a landscaping company, doing lawn work in the summer months, and snowplowing in the winter.
He was the father of two children, ages 16 and 6.
She and her other sister, Maria Dougherty, both believe Abreau deliberately crashed the car. Two weeks earlier, Dougherty said she attempted suicide “all because he broke up with her.”
This time, they said, the two had argued because their brother found proof that Abreau had been cheating on him. “It was like a murder/suicide,” Dougherty said. “It’s insane. She is charged with negligent homicide, reckless conduct and manslaughter and they’re arguing that she’s injured. He had two children he can’t come back to.”
Dougherty said if her brother had been a police officer or the son of a judge, “They wouldn’t be so concerned about her injuries. They’d say, ‘OK, suck it up. Go do it at Valley Street.’”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify comments made by Mariah Dougherty to a reporter regarding the alleged infidelity of her brother’s ex-fiancee.
