No bail for accused church shooter after alleged assault on public defender

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Dale Holloway in a suicide blanket during a video arraignment. Press Pool Photo/David Lane

MANCHESTER, NH —  Dale Holloway, the man charged with shooting a Pentecostal bishop during a wedding, is being held without bail on a first-degree assault charge accusing him of attacking his public defender inside a conference room Monday at the Valley Street jail.

According to a sworn affidavit of Manchester Police Detective  Michael J. LaVallee on file in Hillsborough County Superior Court Northern District, defense attorney Michael Davidow, 52, of the New Hampshire Public Defender Program, suffered severe head injuries including a brain bleed and a broken nose in the alleged attack, requiring his hospitalization in the intensive care unit of the Elliot Hospital.

Assistant Hillsborough County Attorney Brian Greklek-McKeon, who asked Judge Amy Messer to order Holloway preventatively detained because he is an “extreme danger” to the community, said after the hearing that Davidow remains hospitalized but is expected to recover from his injuries.

According to court records, Davidow went to the jail Monday morning to meet with Holloway, his client.  Davidow previously met with Holloway regarding a case but Davidow told detectives that the meeting did not go well.  Davidow said they did not get along and Holloway did not want him as his attorney.

Davidow doesn’t remember the alleged assault and only remembers waking up in the ambulance.

Correctional officer Mark Phillips, 43, told investigators he did not see the incident because he was seated at his desk overseeing the cell block with his back turned away from the conference room.

Deputy Chief of Security Brian Martineau told detectives the interview room is not monitored or recorded.  The process is that the attorney and inmate are placed in a secure room and only when the inmate has shown signs of being dangerous are they handcuffed to the table.

The normal process is for the attorney to turn the lights on and off or tap on the glass to get the correctional officer’s attention when the interview is concluded.

After about 20 minutes, Phillips said he heard a knock on the glass and turned around and saw Holloway walking away from the window and toward the door to the interview room.

He could see Davidow seated at the table with his hands over his face, blood dripping down onto the interview room floor. Phillips activated an alert and other officers entered the room and placed Holloway in a restraint chair.  Then they provided medical care to Davidow and moved him to the medical area.

An ambulance was called and he was taken to the Elliot Hospital.

Holloway, wrapped in a green suicide blanket during his video arraignment from the jail, gave the judge his version of what happened.

“I flicked the lights twice and knocked on the window for someone to come and give him aid because his nose started bleeding and I went to help so I don’t see where I am at fault here,” he told the judge.

Greklek-McKeon, in arguing for Holloway to be held without bail, listed his lengthy criminal history and noted that he is already being detained in connection with the Oct. 12 shooting of three people at the New England Pentecostal Church in Pelham.

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Prosecutor Brian Greklek-McKeon.Dale speaks with reporters following the video arraignment of Dale Holloway at Hillsborough County Superior Court in Manchester on Oct. 22, 2019. Press Pool Photo/David Lane

Holloway is charged with the attempted murder of Bishop Stanley Choate, 75, who was shot in the chest; first-degree assault for knowingly causing injury to the bishop by means of a deadly weapon; being a felon in possession of a .380 caliber pistol; second-degree assault for recklessly causing injury to the bride Claire McMullen, 60, who was shot in the arm, and simple assault for striking the groom, Mark Castiglione, 60, in the head with a firearm.

The wedding was to precede the funeral of Luis Garcia, 60, of Londonderry, Holloway’s step-father, who died Oct. 1 at his home after being shot in the neck.  Brandon Castiglione, 24, of Londonderry is accused of second-degree murder in Garcia’s death. Castiglione is Mark Castiglione’s son.

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Photo of Bishop Stanley Choate brought to court by his nephew, D. Heywood. Photo/Pat Grossmith

New Hampshire Assistant Attorney General Benjamin Agati has said the family connection is something prosecutors are investigating in trying to determine why the shootings took place.

Holloway was to have an evidentiary hearing Tuesday in Hillsborough County Superior Court Southern District in Nashua on the charges related to the church shooting.   However, after Davidow was injured, Public Defender David Rothstein filed a motion Monday to withdraw from the case citing a conflict.   The request was granted.

D. Heywood of Manchester, who said Choate is his uncle, attended the hearing to show his support for his family.

“I don’t think anybody knows who he (Holloway) is,” he said the shooting. “That’s the big question:  Why?”

Holloway, whose address is now listed as the Valley Street jail but who previously resided at 549 Lake Ave., said in applying for a court-appointed attorney in the Pelham case that since birth, he is legally blind in one eye and that he had suffered a head injury.  He said he worked at the Fisher Cats Stadium and Northeast Delta Dental Arena earning $8 an hour.

About this Author

Pat Grossmith

Pat Grossmith is a freelance reporter.