MANCHESTER, NH – The jury deciding the guilt or innocence of Stephen Murphy, accused of raping a teenage boy 28 years ago at the Youth Development Center, is returning to court for a third day on Wednesday to continue their deliberations.
It is possible that the Hillsborough County Superior Court Northern District jury of four men and eight women have reached verdicts on some of the eight counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault against Murphy, given instructions Judge Amy Messer gave them Tuesday afternoon.
About 2:30 p.m., she called the jury back into the courtroom and told them it was OK if they reached a verdict on some of the charges but not all of them.
However, she encouraged them to go back and further deliberate the matter. She told them to take into account other jurors’ opinions but said they were not to change their minds if they believed in their position, or change their vote to just come to a verdict.
“You are not partisans,” she said. “You are judges of the facts.”
Murphy, 56, of Danvers, Mass., is charged with eight counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault, four accusing him of forcing a 14-year-old boy to perform fellatio on him and the other four counts alleging he used his authority as a youth counselor to have the teen perform the sexual act on him. The charges date back to 1997-98.
Jurors heard from both Murphy, who took the stand in his own defense, and the alleged victim, David Meehan, now 44. Murphy denied all charges against him saying they were baseless.
Meehan, in turn, gave graphic testimony as to what he alleges Murphy did to him, including forcing his penis down the then 14-year-old’s throat, and beating him. He testified the abuse occurred from October 1997 through May 1998, when he said he decided to fight him.
Defense Charles J. Keefe, in his closing argument, maintained the state produced no witness and no evidence to support the allegations. He portrayed David Meehan, the alleged victim, as a deeply troubled man struggling with reality, who spent up to 20 hours a day on the internet researching conspiracies and the people at YDC. He either believes what he alleges or he is making up stories, Keefe said.
Meehan, 44, was the first person to go to police in 2017 with allegations that YDC staff repeatedly raped and beat him while he was detained at the juvenile detention center from 1995 to 1998. Since then, more than 2,000 people have come forward, filing claims against the state.
Manchester Ink Link normally doesn’t identify an alleged victim of sexual abuse but Meehan went public with his allegations.
Prosecutors maintain the case was about dominance and sexual violence and that Murphy, a youth counselor who they said was supposed to mentor and guide David, instead coerced him to perform fellatio by beating him into submission.
Keefe told jurors David’s story “has shifted and changed” over the years.
Prosecutor Audriana Mekula, in her closing argument, said Meehan’s words alone are enough for convictions. But she said there is much more evidence supporting what he said including timecards and operations and communication logs.
Meehan’s recollections of when the alleged assaults took place correspond with those documents, records he did not know existed when he went to police, she said.
She also said the defense wants to portray Meehan as a crazy person because he did research on the internet to try to understand what happened to him and why.
Mekula said Meehan came into the courtroom and told them about the most difficult, traumatic moments of his life “because they happened and because they are the truth. He told exactly how this defendant violently raped him.”
After the first assault, she reminded jurors, Meehan said Murphy called him a “little cocksucker” and left him crying in his room.
Meehan has testified three times about what happened to him as a child at the YDC. He made his allegations public in 2017 because his son was in trouble and he feared he would end up in YDC, later renamed the John H. Sununu Youth Services Center, and be raped.
When Meehan contacted law enforcement, the state launched an investigation into the YDC. Ultimately, 10 men were charged with abusing children detained there.
Meehan, three years later, filed a civil suit against the state. It was the first of about 1,500 cases brought by people sent to the YDC who alleged they were physically and/or sexually abused there.
Meehan’s civil case went to trial in 2024 in Rockingham County Superior Court. The jury awarded Meehan $38 million. Within minutes of the verdict being announced, the state contended the jury’s verdict was legally limited to $475,000. That’s because the jury form was marked to indicate the state was liable for one incident that caused Meehan’s years of suffering and mental illness. Under state law, an incident is capped at $475,000. The judge ruled for the state.
Jurors were not told about the $475,000 limit per incident.
Jurors who contacted defense attorneys later said they meant he suffered from one case of PTSD resulting from hundreds of incidents of assaults.
Defense attorneys are appealing the judge’s ruling.
In a civil lawsuit, jurors need to find by a “preponderance of the evidence” to rule in favor of a plaintiff. In a criminal case, in order for prosecutors to prove their case, the jurors must find the defendant is “guilty beyond a reasonable doubt,” a higher standard.
Murphy is still facing two additional trials alleging he abused other youths at YDC. Jury selection is set for one on Jan. 25, 2026, a retrial of an earlier case in which the jury deadlocked and the judge declared a mistrial. It involves allegations that he anally raped a teen while another youth counselor forced the youth to perform fellatio on him while two other staffers held him down on a stairwell in East Cottage.
The second trial is scheduled for March 23, 2026 in which Murphy is charged with a pattern of aggravated felonious sexual assault of another teen.