Father of slain student joins UNH in remembrance
UPDATE: 12:58 pm 10/18/12
Elizabeth Marriott: Police eye second arrest in case of N.H. student, report says
Officials say a second person may be arrested in connection with the case of 19-year-old Elizabeth Marriott, a University of New Hampshire student believed to have been killed a week ago.
Police are investigating claims that Marriott may have suffered a suffocation death during a sexual encounter with 29-year-old Seth Mazzaglia and another woman, CBS Boston reports.
Marriott was last seen on Oct. 9 after attending an evening class in Dover. Mazzaglia was charged Saturday with second-degree murder. He is accused of killing Marriott in his apartment that night.
A law enforcement official who spoke under condition of anonymity on Tuesday said that additional arrests should be expected, the Portsmouth Herald reported.
But Associate Attorney General Jane Young said Wednesday that authorities do not have enough evidence to charge a second person in connection with Marriott's death, according to the Herald.
"We bring a charge when there's evidence," Young said. "What I maintain in this case, is if the evidence brings us to the fact that another person was or other persons were involved then other charges would be brought."
Marriott's body has not been found, but authorities have been searching the waters around Peirce Island in nearby Portsmouth in hopes of finding her.
Elizabeth "Lizzi" Marriott, |
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UPDATE: 10:00am 10/13/12
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UPDATE: 5:15pm 10/12/12
The family is offering a $10,000 reward for information.
Source did not believe police had any one person in particular they were focused on and did not rule out that Marriott may have been involved in an accident.
"We're not ruling out that she was an inexperienced driver and may have just driven off the side of the road. It's quite a distance. And we're trying to coordinate a search," he said.
"Police are trying to gather any information they can from her computer, her laptop and phones. They want to know who she was communicating with and see her last messages," said Anthony Hanna, Marriott's uncle with whom she lived in Chester, N.H.
An army of volunteers are fanning out today around Dover, N.H., posting missing person fliers and searching for signs of 19-year-old Elizabeth "Lizzi" Marriott.
Volunteers plan to distribute 2,500 fliers today alone, according to family members.
Investigators from the state Attorney General's Office, FBI, and Fish and Game have joined state and local police in the hunt for 19-year-old Elizabeth "Lizzi" Marriott, a sophomore and marine biology major who planned to visit a friend in Dover after classes Tuesday night but never showed up.
"We have no answers, a lot of questions and a lot of hope," her father, Bob Marriott, said from a room next to the police department where volunteers and others were organizing teams of searchers who spent Friday looking for clues along the sides of roads and other spots around the UNH campus and in nearby Dover.
Investigators pinged her cell phone, which indicated a signal around 9:30 p.m. in the Dover area. Another ping indicated that she was somewhere between Dover and Durham around 10:10 p.m., possibly in the area of Wentworth-Douglass Hospital in Dover, according to another aunt, Becky Tyning of Beverly, Mass.
Marriott's cousin, Tommy Hanna, 17, said she lived upstairs of his parents' home and while he heard her going to bed Monday night, he didn't see her. He said he left around 5 a.m. Tuesday before she awoke and that he hasn't heard from her.
“She’s a new driver. She didn’t get her license until she was 18 just a week before she started college. She’s newer to New Hampshire. She’s only been here a year. She’s only gone to UNH for this past month,” said Marriott’s aunt, Becky Hannah. “She’s damn smart and she’s clever, but I don’t know if her street smarts are that great and we really need everybody to help us.”
Original Story:
DURHAM — Police throughout the region are searching for a University of New Hampshire student who hasn't been heard from since leaving a class last Tuesday night.
Elizabeth Marriott, 19, a commuter student at the University of New Hampshire, attended a class on Tuesday and was last seen at 9 p.m., police said.
Chester Police Officer Nick McLellan said Elizabeth Marriott is a University of New Hampshire student who lives at home in Chester with her parents.
The UNH Police Department is assisting the Chester Police Department and also the Westborough, Mass. Police Department in the search.
She has not made contact with anyone since sending a text message to a friend just before 9 p.m. on Tuesday night after a class at the university.
Elizabeth Marriott, who goes by “Lizzie,” is a marine biology major and a sophomore at UNH. Family said between classes, her volunteer work at the New England Aquarium and her job at Target, she has little time to socialize. Marriott’s family is confused and concerned. They said this is completely out of character.
A family member tells investigators Marriott had indicated she was thinking about going to Portsmouth to see friends after class.
Students said they have not received an e-mail from the school notifying them of the incident.
McLellan said she did not return home that night, did not show up for her job at the Target store in Greenland on Wednesday, and has not been to any of her classes in the last two days.
On Thursday, police put out an alert for Marriott and her vehicle, a 2001 tan Mazda Tribute with the license plate 3045397. Marriott is 5-foot-5, weighs about 130 pounds and has blonde hair and blue eyes. Police did not have a description of what she was last seen wearing.