November 15, 2024
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Shooting victim had run-ins with law

NEWPORT, N.H. – The man shot and killed over the weekend had a history of minor run-ins with the law, according to police in Sanford, Maine.

Stanley Negri, 33, was shot outside a trailer at Country Club Estates, a mobile-home park, shortly before 10 p.m. Saturday. No arrests have been made.

Negri died of two gunshot wounds to the head, according to the state medical examiner, Associate Attorney General Kelly Ayotte said Monday. She said the investigation was continuing, but “no arrests are imminent.”

Negri had lived in Sanford for at least 13 years, but moved to Lempster about two weeks ago, police said. He was working in East Lempster.

Sanford police Maj. Gordon Littlefield said that starting in 1989, Negri was arrested several times for offenses including disorderly conduct and assault.

“He did have a knack for getting into skirmishes,” Littlefield said.

A spokeswoman for the York County jail said Negri spent a month behind bars in 1999 after he was convicted of being an habitual motor vehicle offender. His most recent stay was last March, when he spent a few hours in jail after being arrested on unspecified charges.

Police searched the mobile home at lot No. 39, where the shooting took place, Saturday night and most of Sunday.

Neighbor Jan Sargent said she heard a metallic clanging sound outside her trailer Saturday night and went outside to investigate. After a minute, she heard a popping sound that she recognized as gunfire and saw a puff of smoke in the air near No. 39, the trailer diagonally across from hers. Then she saw someone walk into the trailer and shut the door, she told the Eagle Times of Claremont.

“It was creepy,” she said. “Everything was so eerily quiet after that.”

Trailer No. 39 belongs to truck driver Wayne Rickard and his wife, Pam, according to the trailer park’s owner and other residents. Wayne Rickard was questioned by Newport police Sunday.

“I have no comment. We’ve had a real tragedy here, and I’d appreciate it if you’d please leave my property,” Rickard told an Eagle Times reporter shortly after he, his daughter and their dog were allowed back into their home Sunday afternoon.

Rickard had a bandaged and badly swollen eye.

Ayotte said a person other than Negri had been injured Saturday night, but would not name that person.

Neighbors said they couldn’t imagine that Rickard was responsible.

Neighbor David Wirkkala said Rickard was a member of the local Moose lodge and a gentleman who liked nothing better than spending time with his daughter.

“He must have cracked somehow, or something must have happened. It just doesn’t make sense,” he said. “There had to be a serious reason for him to do something like that. He wasn’t the type to go just pulling out a gun on somebody and shooting them.”


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