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Brother: Witness would testify to Smoronk's contract with hitman to kill sister

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Murder suspect Timothy Verrill chats with his defense team on Wednesday during a scheduling hearing for his upcoming retrial. (Rochester Voice photo) Inset, Christine Sullivan, Dean Smoronk and 'Chencho' a potential witness yet to testify.

A witness for the defense in the aborted trial of a Dover man accused of killing two women in Farmington in 2017 was scheduled to testify prior to the mistrial being declared that Dean Smoronk paid him to kill his longtime girlfriend, one of the women slain, the girlfriend's brother said on Wednesday.

Jeff Sullivan, who lives in New Jersey, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday that a man who lives in Florida was "sequestered in a hotel room" and was set to testify the day after Strafford County Superior Court Judge Steven Houran declared a mistrial due to discovery issues related to the New Hampshire State Police investigation into the case.

"There was going to be a witness who would testify that would say Dean paid him to off my sister and he (the hitman) decided against it," said Sullivan, whose sister, Christine Sullivan, 48; and an acquaintance of hers, Jenna Pellegrini, 32, of Barrington, were both killed early the morning of Jan. 27, 2017, according to police.

Autopsies revealed Sullivan had a fractured skull and was stabbed in the neck and lungs, while Pellegrini had been stabbed in the neck, torso and back 43 times.

Smoronk has never been implicated in the Farmington murders, but Jeff Sullivan feels his possible involvement isn't being investigated as much as it needs to be.

Sullivan said the alleged Florida hitman's nickname is "Chencho," but that is the extent of his knowledge of the man, which he learned through his own investigation in Florida.

He said the witness was brought up to testify by the defense team for Timothy Verrill of Dover, who is charged with first degree murder in the two women's deaths.

"I've known about "Chencho" for two years," Sullivan said. "I told police in New Hampshire but no one wanted to listen."

Sullivan feels New Hampshire Police have been myopic in their investigation, focusing only on Verrill and not looking enough at the potential involvement of Smoronk, who on Tuesday was given a 42-month sentence for trafficking in meth, a sentence Jeff Sullivan scoffed at, calling it a "slap on the wrist."

"Here's a guy got out of a Virginia jail in April (2018) and he's back making meth deals in May," he said. "The jails are filled with men who beat their wives and hire people to kill them, but in New Hampshire they don't look into whether you might have coerced or paid for it to be done.

"It's no coincidence that you hired someone and if fell through two years ago and they get murdered by someone's hands down the road and you had nothing to do with it; it's not a coincidence."

Because Smoronk had dual residency in Florida and New Hampshire, and because his drug enterprise is alleged to have stretched to the West Coast, Sullivan believes the only agency that can sort through everything and find the truth is the FBI.

Sullivan said he know he'll never get to talk to his sister again no matter the outcome of another trial, so right now he's just hoping to find out what happened and why.

He said he's sent correspondence to Verrill asking him to come clean, but has received no response.

"I have sent correspondence to Tim, saying for both our families, you should say what you know," he said.

"I think it was some type of contract, but I'm never gonna have certainty," he said.

And he blames police for focusing on Verrill's guilt while looking past the possible involvement of her longtime boyfriend, who was known to be prone to violence upon her as a domestic partner.

"They found out Smoronk had an alibi in Florida, and that's as far as they went," Sullivan said.

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