RELATED STORY: Ayotte beefs up Cold Case Unit with funding, more staff as families push for justice, closure
MANCHESTER, NH – This August 30 will mark a decade since Denise Robert, an energetic 62-year-old advertising sales rep from Bedford, was gunned down while taking a routine Sunday night walk in a North End neighborhood.
Over those 10 years, investigators have continued to work the case, following up each tip that comes in. With information continuing to be brought to police attention, her murder has not been declared a cold case.
“It’s an anomaly,” said Michael Garrity, director of communications for the New Hampshire Department of Justice.
Senior Assistant Attorney General Ben Agati, chief of the Homicide Unit, agrees. “I don’t think I’ve ever been asked before about a 10-year-old homicide case that was not a cold case,” he said. “In that sense, it is unusual.”
He said the case remains open and very active. He explained that the New Hampshire Department of Justice defines a “cold case” homicide as: “An unsolved homicide or suspected homicide in the state that is more than five years old, has no significant leads, and is no longer actively investigated by the original investigative unit due to a lack of viable leads or workload considerations.”
Agati said one reason the investigation does not carry that designation is because “it has not had that level of inactivity. There have been significant leads – it is remarkable how leads continue to come in.”
In early 2025, the family sponsored two billboards in the city, one on Second Street and the other on Elm Street. They feature a photograph of Robert on the left with “$40,000 REWARD” in bold red atop the question, “Who Murdered Denise Robert?” The number of Manchester Crimeline – 603-624-4040 –is at the bottom.
Agati supports the billboards and anything that keeps the case in the public’s eye.
“Her family’s been great to work with,” he said. “I think they’re [the billboards] great. I think anything that keeps the name out there and gives people a reminder is a good thing.”
He said the most recent tip that was worked by detectives was back in March, a tip he attributed to the billboards.
“It led to a follow-up interview,” Agati said. “That’s something we communicated with the family. I’ll just leave it at that.”
What is needed to solve Denise’s murder, he said, is a witness or witnesses to come forward.
While investigators have consistently received tips, Agati said “none have been the breakthrough that we really need on this case. This is a case that is going to be solved with testimonial evidence.”
Investigators have said they believe the murder is solvable and that it was not a random act.
“We are still looking for a red truck and are very interested in who was driving a red truck,” Agati said. DNA testing isn’t viable in the case since it was a shooting, he said, and police don’t have physical evidence to test.
In 2016, then police chief Enoch Willard told a New Hampshire Union Leader reporter that Robert was the victim of a drive-by shooting. A witness reported seeing a rust-colored pickup truck speeding away after Robert was shot.
Agati, however, said investigators do not have conclusive proof that the shooting was a drive-by, a walk-by or that the shot was from a distance further away. “We don’t have physical evidence that conclusively proves one of those circumstances,” he said.
August 30, 2015
In the hours before her death, Denise had gone to the Executive Health and Sports Center, a gym where she exercised, after which she went shopping. That Sunday night, as was her habit for six years, she parked her car in the lot at Brookside Congregational Church. From there, she began her walk. She was familiar with the neighborhood, having grown up on nearby Sagamore Street.
About a half-mile from the church, around 9 p.m., as she was walking on Ray Street, someone shot Robert in the head; she dropped where she stood. Neighbors thought they heard a firecracker but witnesses told police they saw an older pickup truck, possibly rust-colored or red, speed off, turning onto Carpenter Street then heading south on Union Street.
After the murder, investigators went door-to-door, speaking with residents. They conducted extensive interviews of Robert’s family and co-workers. The property near where she was killed was searched numerous times by police, the FBI and private citizens, all using metal detectors. Investigators wouldn’t say what they were looking for at the time, but much later they acknowledged they had not recovered the bullet.
For weeks, a detective reviewed video from businesses and residents along the route Denise took after she left the gym, went shopping and parked at Brookside Congregational Church.
By 2017, a reward for information leading to the arrest of the individual responsible for Robert’s murder reached $40,000. In May of that year, authorities were back in the area again with metal detectors. And that August, investigators recreated Robert’s walk that night with witnesses situated in the exact spots they were the night she was killed.
The investigation seemed revigorated on Oct. 19, 2017 when police executed a search warrant of a property at 43 Kendall Pond Road, #B in Londonderry. The attorney general’s office acknowledged the search was connected to the Robert homicide. “In order to protect the integrity of the on-going investigation, what items are being sought and what, if any, items are located will not be disclosed,” investigators said in a news release at the time. Eight years later, they still haven’t said what was recovered, if anything. And no one has been charged with Robert’s murder.
Arthur Robert of Natick, Mass., one of Denise’s 11 siblings, said he was “floored” when he received a call at 4:30 a.m. on Aug. 31, 2015 from his brother Tom Robert of Manchester who shared the “cold hard facts” with him. “Nobody expects their older sister to be shot. I couldn’t understand how that could happen. She was a force of nature but certainly not one anyone would consider a threat,” he said.
Robert was raised in Manchester, earned an associate’s degree at Hesser College and her bachelor’s degree in business studies/marketing at Southern NH University. She also obtained her New Hampshire real estate license.
She had studied ballet and forms of painting and drawing in younger years.
At 62, she was a whirlwind, an exercise enthusiast who enjoyed the outdoors, hiking, mountain climbing, biking, walking and swimming.
For most of her career, she sold advertising, initially for Neighborhood News, owned by the Union Leader Corp., and later, for the New Hampshire Union Leader as well.
While a decade has passed, Arthur Robert said there is always hope.
“There’s always an opportunity for information to surface, that’s why the family is looking to raise awareness with billboards in Manchester,” he said. They hope the billboards will either “dislodge a memory or cause someone to come forward,” he said.
Agati said anyone who calls in a tip receives a callback and every tip received is followed up on.
Agati, not speaking of the Robert case, said sometimes an individual may get into trouble and now are willing to talk to police when before they weren’t. He said they will tell an officer, “You should listen to what I have to say now.” That, he said, is the type of information they receive all the time.
He said when there is no longer any activity in a case, no tips are coming in and there’s “nothing else viable to look at, that’s is when the Cold Case Unit is going to get involved with a fresh set of eyes to see if there is something else there. We have not had that inactivity in the Robert case, which is unusual.”
He said the Robert family has been wonderful, despite the murder remaining unsolved.
That does not mean, however, that the family isn’t frustrated that 10 years have passed and they have yet to see justice for Denise. They also find it exasperating by the lack of information coming from the Attorney General’s Office. When it comes to murder investigations, the Attorney General’s office is tight lipped, releasing little information because they say they need to protect the integrity of the investigation, to secure a successful prosecution.
They are not the only family frustrated with the attorney general’s office as evidenced by the annual rally in Concord by the New Hampshire Coalition for Families of the Missing and Murdered. This year’s rally is set for Aug. 15 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., at the State House, 107 N. Main St. It is to protest “the state’s handling of backlogged murder investigations.” Robert’s case will be one of those highlighted.
“I hope those families do not give up hope but I cannot say I begin to understand their frustration,” Agati said. It is frustrating when there is no physical evidence and, he said, the “people who have the information don’t have the courage to come forward. I know I am frustrated every time I’ve sat down with a family – as are all prosecutors and investigators – but we don’t have new information we are able to share. And if I know how frustrated I am, I can’t begin to know how frustrated the families are.”
In the past two years, however, he said CCU investigators have resolved several murders.
One case was that of the murder of Paul Herlihy, 50, of Milford, who was found dead in his home in August 2003, 22 years ago. In June, police arrested his son, Douglas Herlihy, 39, in Saugus, Mass. and charged him with the murder.
The arrest was the result of a follow-up investigation conducted by Bruce Foremny, who was a part-time investigator with the Cold Case Unit. Foremny. He is now full-time. (See related story).
Anyone with information regarding the murder of Ms. Robert is urged to contact Investigator Todd Flanagan at (603) 271-1208 or the Manchester Police Department Crimeline at (603) 624- 4040 or log on to www.manchestercrimeline.org.