By Nicholas Brown
Staff Writer

Eric Windhurst

Eric Windhurst, accused of shooting a Hooksett man to death 20 years ago, may have reached a plea agreement with state prosecutors, and is scheduled for a plea and sentencing hearing on Monday, Aug. 21.

Windhurst, a builder from Hopkinton, is accused of killing Daniel Paquette in 1985. At the time of the shooting, Paquette was riding a bulldozer on his Hooksett property.

Paquette was killed by one long-distance rifle shot to the chest.

Police arrested Windhurst in December, chargeing him with first-degree murder. The crime carries a sentence of life in prison.

Jury selection in Windhurst's trial was scheduled to begin Aug. 28.

The plea and sentencing hearing notice, filed in Merrimack Superior Court on Wednesday, Aug. 16, doesn't divulge any details about a plea from Windhurst.

Senior Assistant Attorney General Jeffery Strelzin, who's been handling the state case, declined to comment beyond what is in the document.

Windhurst's lawyer, Mark Sisti, couldn't be reached by press time.

Victor Paquette, the victim's brother, said he was surprised by the apparent plea deal, and said he was recently assured by prosecutors that they were prepared to take Windhurst to trial.

“The (Attorney General's Office) said, ‘Oh yeah, we've got this, we're ready to go,'” said Paquette.

By press time, Victor Paquette said his family didn't know the nature of the apparent plea, but said they would be incensed with anything less than a firstdegree murder conviction.

“My brother got no deal,” said Paquette. “Does he get to come back in 10 or 15 years after time served? No. He's dead. He was murdered.”

Court documents show that Windhurst was accompanied on the day of the shooting by Melanie Cooper, the victim's stepdaughter, who told police she was raped and emotionally abused by Paquette.

Windhurst, then 17, and Cooper, then 15, played soccer together.

Cooper cooperated with police in 2004, and has agreed to plead guilty to a lesser charge of misleading investigators.

Windhurst's lawyers had intended to argue that the shooting was justified in defense of Cooper and members of her family.

That notion was recently challenged by prosecutors arguing that Paquette posed no imminent threat to Cooper or her family.

In his rulings, Merrimack Superior Court Chief Justice Robert Lynn has suggested that self-defense or defense of a third person claims are tenuous given the evidence, and recently gave defense lawyers until Aug. 21 to provide written justification for such a plea.

Prosecutors recently combatted the self-defense claim using testimony alleging that Eric Windhurst may have been motivated to murder by anger over his father's alleged sexual abuse of his sisters.

Lynn ruled to allow evidence suggesting Windhurst's sisters were sexually abused by their father, John Windhurst.

“The defendant said it was his anger about what his own father had done to his sisters that allowed him to kill (Paquette),” prosecutors wrote.

Windhurst's plea and sentencing hearing is scheduled for 9 a.m. at the Nashua location of the Hillsborough County Superior Court.