MANCHESTER, NH — Damien Seace, a self-described Nazi, will spend the rest of his life behind bars after pleading guilty Wednesday to first-degree murder in the 2019 beating death of his girlfriend, Jennifer Burpee, 45.
Seace, 36, entered the guilty plea Wednesday in Hillsborough County Superior Court Northern District. A first-degree murder conviction carries a mandatory life sentence in the New Hampshire State Prison without possibility of parole.
On Wednesday Manchester Police Carlo Capano released the following statement regarding Seace:
“Damien Seace deserves to spend the rest of his life behind bars. His brutal and horrific crime proves he has total disregard for human life. I am very pleased with the plea and sentencing. I want to thank the Attorney General’s Office for their hard work, as well as our own detectives who worked long hours investigating this case. I can only hope that this resolution brings some closure to the family of Jennifer Burpee.”
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On July 23, 2019, an inebriated Seace went to Burpee’s apartment at the Henry J. Pariseau Apartments on the city’s West Side, broke down her door and beat her to death, first with a small end table and then with one its legs that broke off in the attack. He estimated he bludgeoned her 20 times in the head and remembered thinking as he hit her that, “You’re done.”
What happened that evening is detailed in the sworn affidavit of Detective Kevin O’Meara
As Seace pounded on the door to Burpee’s 55 Amory St. apartment on the seventh floor of the 11-story hi-rise, a desperate Burpee was on the phone to a 9-1-1 dispatcher. Seace, she said, had taken her cat, was at her apartment, and he was going to kill her.
Burpee said Seace initially grabbed her but she was able to isolate herself in the apartment and call for help while he was in the hallway outside the door.
She stressed to the dispatcher that Seace was violent which became evident as the 9-1-1 dispatcher recorded Burpee’s screams as Seace broke into the apartment.
“Don’t kill me, no!” She repeatedly yelled: “OWW,” continuing to scream. “He’s killing me!,” “Damien stop!,’ “Anybody help!,” ‘He’s killing me!”
Eventually there was silence.
When officers arrived, they found Burpee lying face down on the floor of her apartment. Blood pooled around Burpee’s face, which had significant trauma. She was dead.
Seace was hiding in the bathroom and refused to come out because, he told the officers, he was scared. Eventually he came out, covered in blood and with Burpee’s cat in his arms. He refused to drop the cat and put his hands up, instead yelling “Fucking shoot me!” He began coming at the officers, who zapped him with a Taser, dropping him to the floor. He was arrested.
Seace was interviewed by police the following day. He told them he and Burpee had been together romantically for three years. He was unsure at that point if Burpee was alive or not.
He said prior to the incident, he had taken three boxes of Coricidin cough medicine and drank two bottles of wine. He and Burpee argued. He was angry that, while he was sleeping, she had left him in the apartment with a homeless person she let sleep there the night before. He said he felt disrespected.
Enraged, he took an end table and hit her in the head. He said he went “caveman” and “berserker,” and that he saw “red.”
At one point he told the investigators, “I’m not going to shed any tears for that person because I don’t’ have any for that human anymore.”
Asked if he thought Burpee got what she deserved, Seace said, “Yeah.”
The incident was not the first time that Seace was arrested on domestic violence charges involving Burpee.
On Oct. 29, 2018, Seace was arrested for second-degree assault after he put his hands around Burpee’s neck and told her he was going to murder and bury her, according to records on file in Superior Court.
In that same incident he was charged with two counts of criminal threatening and a misdemeanor offense of simple assault, domestic violence.
On Feb. 13, 2019, however, prosecutors dropped all four charges against Seace, who had listed his address as the Liberty House at 75 West Baker St., a sober house for homeless veterans. Seace was never in the military.
Hillsborough County Attorney Michael Conlon has said the charges were dropped because Burpee recanted.
Seace’s alleged abuse of Burpee goes back at least to July 18, 2017, when he was arrested by Manchester police at 92 Riverwalk Way for allegedly punching Burpee several times about the head. At the time, Seace listed his address as 387 Washington St., Dover.
Prosecutors dropped those charges as well.
Seace’s case was one of the reasons cited by New Hampshire Attorney General Gordon MacDonald when he took over the day-to-day operations of the county attorney’s office. On Monday, he relinquished that daily oversight after 10 months of state attorneys helping and providing training for the staff.
