Still No Verdict in Arson Trial of Former N.H. Firefighter/EMT
Feb. 07--DOVER -- Jurors for the Gregory Potter arson trial deliberated for five and a half hours Friday, but did not reach a decision on whether or not to convict the former Peterborough on-call firefighter and EMT.
Potter, 23, was on trial at Strafford County Superior Court for the past month, as jurors heard testimony from numerous witnesses that connected him circumstantially to the five fires he is accused of starting on Feb. 2, 2013. They began deliberations on Thursday afternoon.
On Feb. 1, 2013, Potter allegedly travelled to Durham with Adrian Allard of Antrim to visit friends attending the University of New Hampshire. They became heavily intoxicated on alcohol together. Then, after being kicked out of a party at The Gables for vomiting and urinating on the floor, the duo returned to the apartment where they were staying at 4 Main St., and Allard passed out on a couch.
Potter then allegedly went to a small party in the apartment below where he was planning to sleep. After 10 to 15 minutes, he left, according to the three woman who lived there.
That is when prosecutors claim Potter crossed the road and entered a Circle K gas station to buy a lighter at 12:52 a.m. on Feb. 2. They have video surveillance of his actions.
After leaving the store, Potter then walked in the direction of 15 Main St., where the first fire was reported to 911 at 1:06 a.m.
A mattress had been set on fire inside the house. Ten male UNH students lived there at the time, witnesses testified.
The state charged Potter with starting the fire at 15 Main St. and four more additional fires that were started close to that location within two hours of the mattress fire. To support their charges, investigators talked to two students who witnessed a man that matched Potter's physical description setting a towel on fire at 19 Main St. When the man realized he was seen, he dropped the towel and ran off towards the woods, crashing into a tree on the way, the students said.
That towel had DNA evidence on it that was connected to Potter.
There was minimal damage at four of the five fires Potter allegedly started, but a barn and attached apartment were completely destroyed in the fire at 4 Smith Park Lane, which was allegedly started before 3:30 a.m.
Jurors this week heard an interview of incriminating statements Potter made to Fire Investigator Keith Rodenhiser of the state fire marshal's office on Feb. 13, 2013, but during the course of the trial, they never heard about the picture of the fire at 4 Smith Park Lane found on Potter's cell phone, or about the full extent of the previous altercations Potter had with the residents at 15 Main St.?
Potter was kicked out of the house on Sept. 30, 2012,? after a computer printer burst into flames inside a ground-floor room. Potter also discharged a fire extinguisher on four vehicles parked in front of the building on his birthday in August of 2012.
The cell phone picture was suppressed from evidence because Judge Steven Houran ruled that it was obtained by police illegally.
Jurors will resume deliberations Monday at 10 a.m.
Copyright 2015 - Foster's Daily Democrat, Dover, N.H.
