New Hampshire Man Admits to Fatal Beating of Father in 2003

Officials credited years of investigative work and continued state support for helping break open the case.

A Nashua courtroom saw a long-running homicide case move toward closure on Wednesday when Douglas Herlihy admitted responsibility for the death of his father, Paul Herlihy, in 2003. The case had remained unsolved for 20 years before investigators with the New Hampshire Department of Justice’s Cold Case Unit revived it.

Douglas Herlihy, dressed in an orange jail uniform, pleaded guilty to manslaughter rather than the second-degree murder charge he originally faced. He is now set to receive a sentence of 12 to 24 years in prison.

Court proceedings described a troubled relationship between the two men and said the killing followed a physical confrontation inside the home they shared. Christopher Knowles, chief of the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Cold Case Unit, told the court that Herlihy acknowledged grabbing a baseball bat kept near the front door and striking his father, which caused his death.

Afterward, investigators said Herlihy tried to hide what had happened by concealing the body. Records indicate police later found a large item in the living room covered with carpeting and a blue tarp, with a floor fan aimed at it. Authorities also said he later buried the remains in a grave dug near the house.

Officials credited years of investigative work and continued state support for helping break open the case. The guilty plea closes one of the state’s older cold cases and ends a search that stretched across two decades.