With closing arguments complete, Belanger murder case now in jury's hands

Senior Assistant Attorney General Peter Hinckley points at defendant Justin Belanger during his closing arguments on Thursday. (Rochester Voice photo)

DOVER - A Strafford County jury will continue their deliberation today on whether a Rochester man should spend up to life in prison in the death of 24-year-old Billy Jo Ahearn, thought to have been mistakenly shot the night of June 5, 2018, during a confrontation between two groups walking near Friendly's restaurant on South Main Street in Rochester's downtown.

Closing arguments on Thursday featured defense attorney Brett Newkirk portraying the government as heavy handed and "fixated" in its chosen narrative that it was Justin Belanger, 21, who pulled the trigger, while Senior Assistant Attorney General Peter Hinckley began his closing by replying, "The government didn't fixate on Justin Belanger, the evidence did."

Defendant Justin Belanger sips water as he watches closing arguments on Thursday at Strafford County Superior Court in Dover. (Rochester Voice photo)

Still, Newkirk did give the jury some credible questions to ask themselves, including why did Devin Giles, who had just met Belanger the day of the shooting, put himself in great legal jeopardy by retrieving the murder weapon from underneath a porch near Lafayette Street where the defendant had allegedly left it, and thrown it in Barbadoes Pond in Madbury.

"Devin Giles escapes out of the window of Justin's house, has a friend come get him and they get high," Newkirk said. "Then he sleeps in the next morning, then he has his friend take him to get the murder weapon and drive him

Remy Lopez (Police photo)

to Madbury where he throws it in a pond. Why would you go near that thing for a guy you just met; you know police are searching for it!"

Newkirk also accused the state of "purposely downplaying" the weaknesses in its case, adding the shooter could have possibly been Giles or one of two others, but Hinckley called that strategy "looking for a bogeyman" in an effort to obscure Belanger's guilt.

"There is no bogeyman here," Hinckley said, adding that it was Remy Lopez, said to have been the intended target of the shooting, who insulted Belanger a day before the shooting with what Belanger considered the equivalent of the "N-word to a black man."

"And he was gonna get him for that," Hinckley said.

Lopez, who is currently in federal prison on a firearms charge, never identified two others the defense has insisted our potential suspects as at the scene of the fatal shooting, Hinckley said.

"Remy Lopez never identified them, only Belanger," he added.

According to the affidavit filed by Rochester Police shortly after the June 5, 2018, shooting, they had responded to the corner of Waldron Avenue and Lafayette Street the day before Ahearn was killed for a report of shots fired. Once on scene, they witnessed the suspect, Justin Belanger, then 19, arguing with Lopez.
"Justin Belanger, who was visibly upset, said words to him to the effect that he would 'catch' the identified adult male when the police were not around," the affidavit states.

Justin Belanger in booking photo from 2019 arrest, Billy Jo Ahearn

Lopez, who was not identified in the affidavit, told police that as they passed by Belanger on South Main Street on June 5, 2018, he saw the suspect reach into his pocket, saw a flash and heard a gunshot just before Ahearn was shot.
The affidavit also indicates another man who was walking with Belanger on South Main at the time of the shooting told police he saw Belanger point his gun at the man walking with Ahearn.
When officers responded to the shooting they found three adults, including Ahearn, who had sustained a gunshot wound. She died early the next morning at a local hospital.
Belanger was indicted on the pair of second-degree murder charges in June 2019