Brother of Milford homicide victim say it’s time family had answers

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Paul Herlihy of Milford was killed in 2003 in the Nashua Street house he was converting into an antiques shop.

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Sean Trombly waters flowers in one of Trombly Farm's greenhouses in Milford, Saturday morning.

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Paul Herlihy of Milford was killed in 2003 in the Nashua Street house he was converting into an antiques shop.

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MILFORD – It’s been eight years since police found Paul Herlihy’s body in his Nashua Street home and eight years since an autopsy determined his death was a homicide.

No one has ever been charged in the crime, and no suspect, weapon or motive was ever identified. Authorities said the cause of death has been withheld for investigative reasons.

Now Bill Herlihy of Milton, Mass., says the family is tired of waiting for answers as to how and why his 51-year-old brother died in the summer of 2003.

Paul Herlihy, an antiques dealer and Massachusetts native, had been dead for several days when he was found inside 425 Nashua St. on Aug. 27, 2003, after a family member asked police to check his welfare. He had moved to Milford that winter, intending to open an antiques shop in the house.

The case remains open and is among those in the files of the state’s Cold Case Unit, established in 2009. Bill said his family was told the case was near the top of its list, and an official with the state attorney general’s office recently said that much work has been done on the case.

In August the family marked the eighth anniversary of Paul’s death and family members say they know little more than they knew eight years ago.

Investigators say Paul died from some kind of “blunt force trauma,” but do not know what the weapon was or when the crime took place, said Bill.

“The family has been quiet about the whole thing, but it’s been a long time,” said Bill, and the New Hampshire attorney general’s office “hasn’t given the family anything.”

If investigators said there was no way to solve the case, that would be all right, but to keep saying, “We’re working on it,” and “It’s on the top of the list,” that’s what’s frustrating, said Bill Herlihy.

Paul’s teenage son, Douglas Herlihy, was arrested in Stoneham, Mass., on motor vehicle and drug charges, the day after this father’s body was found. He was driving his father’s 1995 Lincoln, which he’d previously been charged with stealing, and investigators maintained that he was a “person of interest” but not a suspect in the case.

Douglas, who was 17 at the time, seemed to be the prime suspect, Bill Herlihy said, and investigators didn’t seem interested in ruling out other possible suspects, such as drug dealers the teenager might have owed money to.

Less than two weeks before his father’s body was found, the boy had taken the car without permission, and police found him sleeping in it in Saugus, Mass., with more than four pounds of marijuana and a quarter pound of psychedelic mushrooms, according to news reports from the time.

Later that month in Milford District Court, Paul Herlihy was “soft spoken and obviously distressed,” The Cabinet reported, while the son seemed eager to leave and “showed little respect” for the proceedings or for Judge Martha Crocker. He pleaded guilty to unauthorized use of the car and received a suspended sentence.

Not long before Paul’s body was found, Douglas stayed with his uncle for four days, because “he needed a break” from living with his father, said Bill.

At the end of the four days, Bill dropped the teenager off with his father at a D’Angelos Restaurant in Massachusetts around 8 a.m. and Bill was the last member of his family to see Paul Herlihy alive.

Less than 10 days later, Douglas Herlihy was being sought for questioning in his father’s homicide.

“The whole case focused on him. He had drug issues, but that didn’t make the kid a murderer,” said Herlihy, who called Douglas “just a goofy teenage kid.” The investigation was not broad enough,” Bill said, and there were other people who could have killed him.

Douglas’ life has been ruined, said Bill, and the young man no longer has any communication with his 45 cousins.

Douglas Herlihy went to jail in 2010 on various felony drug and motor vehicle charges, but as far as anyone knows, said Bill, he has never been violent.

Paul and his son had a stormy relationship, and Melrose, Mass. police say they responded to the home 39 times over a three-year period.

“Paul was not a well-liked guy,” said Bill, “and he was going through an awful divorce.”

Douglas is the youngest of four boys and Andrew, an older brother, agrees the family is unhappy with the lack of progress and lack of information on the case.

It seems to be “in a holding pattern,” said Andrew, and investigators have been “extremely vague” in responding to the family’s questions.

Bill and Paul were among 13 siblings.

“It is a good family. I don’t think anyone even owns a firearm. Our mother kept us in line,” Bill said. “She would be rolling in her grave” if she knew what happened.

Senior Assistant Attorney General Jeff Strelzin said former Senior Assistant Attorney General Will Delker had been working on the unsolved homicide until he was appointed to the state Supreme Court last month.

“There has been a lot of work done on that case and some information has been shared with the family,” said Strelzin, but with an ongoing investigation, there is a limited amount of information that can be given to the public.

Bill Herlihy says the information the family has been given is not nearly enough.

“I don’t even know the cause of death or the date of death,” he said.