Connecticut River Valley Killer

What the record shows

The Connecticut River Valley Killer is the name given to the unidentified person believed responsible for the stabbing deaths of at least seven women on both sides of the Connecticut River in New Hampshire and Vermont between 1978 and 1987, and for a 1988 attack on a pregnant woman who survived. Most victims were found in woods near Claremont, Newport and Unity, New Hampshire; two were found in Vermont. No one has been charged, and the New Hampshire Attorney General's Office, which has never officially linked all of the killings, treats them as open cold cases.

The first death usually included is that of Catherine Millican, 27, last seen on October 24, 1978, when she went birdwatching in New London, New Hampshire. According to the New Hampshire Union Leader, her body was found the next night off Route 11 with multiple stab wounds. Mary Elizabeth Critchley, 37, was last seen hitchhiking in July 1981 and found in Unity that August; Wikipedia records her cause of death as undetermined. Bernice Courtemanche, 17, disappeared from Claremont on May 30, 1984, and Ellen Fried, 26, a nurse, was last seen at a Claremont payphone that July. Fried's skeletal remains were found near the Sugar River in the Kellyville section of Newport in September 1985; Courtemanche's were found in Newport on April 19, 1986, and WMUR reported she had been stabbed. Eva Morse, 27, last seen hitchhiking near Charlestown in July 1985, was found fatally stabbed in West Unity six days later.

The killings also crossed into Vermont. Lynda Moore, 36, was found dead in her home in the Saxtons River area of Westminster, Vermont, on April 15, 1986; the Vermont State Police list the case as an unsolved homicide, and WMUR reported more than 20 stab wounds. Barbara Agnew, a 39-year-old nurse, went missing on January 10, 1987, after her car was found at the northbound Interstate 91 rest area in White River Junction. According to the Vermont State Police, her body was found in woods in Hartland, Vermont, and an autopsy determined homicide; Wikipedia gives the discovery date as March 28, 1987.

The last attack attributed to the series was survived. On August 6, 1988, Jane Boroski, 22 and seven months pregnant, stopped at a store in Swanzey, New Hampshire, on her way home from the Cheshire County Fair. According to WMUR, a man parked beside her, tried to pull her from her car and stabbed her 27 times before driving off. She drove to a friend's house; she and her baby survived. She gave police a description and a partial license plate. The attacks appear to have stopped afterward. Boroski has spoken publicly for decades; authorities have not publicly confirmed the link to the killings.

According to Wikipedia, investigators noted that dump sites, wound patterns and circumstances were similar enough to suggest one perpetrator; because two victims were nurses found near the Sugar River in Kellyville, the unknown man is sometimes called the Kellyville Killer. Private investigators and journalists have proposed candidates, including a man who died in a 2005 murder-suicide, but police have never publicly named a suspect, and Boroski has said she does not believe that man was her attacker.

The investigation has shown renewed activity in the 2020s. On May 21, 2024, the New Hampshire Cold Case Unit, State Police Major Crime Unit and Claremont and Newport police executed court-authorized search warrants at a residence on Ayers Road in Kellyville, Newport. The Valley News reported that the homeowner, questioned years earlier about the Fried case, said investigators took antique swords and knives that had belonged to his father; he denied any involvement and has not been charged. Attorney General's Office spokesman Michael Garrity said the search followed several years of investigation and cautioned against drawing conclusions.

On October 29, 2025, the 47th anniversary of Millican's death, the Cold Case Unit and New Hampshire Fish and Game began searching the Esther Currier Wildlife Management Area in New London for physical evidence and released previously unpublished photographs of her. The Cold Case Unit asks anyone with information to call 603-271-2663, and the Vermont State Police continue to carry the Moore and Agnew cases as unsolved homicides.