CONCORD, N.H.—A man convicted of killing a 12-year-old boy in Nashua 35 years ago is back in New Hampshire after a failed attempt to keep him incarcerated as a dangerous sexual predator.
Raymond Guay, 60, was released from a federal prison in West Virginia on Monday after serving an 18-to-25 year sentence for the 1973 murder of John Lindovski, plus additional time for assaulting a fellow inmate.
His release comes three days after a federal panel ruled that he could not remain incarcerated under a law that allows for civil commitment of sexually violent predators. New Hampshire authorities, who pushed for the civil commitment, had hoped to at least keep Guay out of the state, but a Los Angeles judge ruled Friday that Guay must be allowed to return to New Hampshire.
Thomas Tarr, the chief U.S. probation officer for New Hampshire, said Guay had planned to move to Los Angeles, but officials there couldn’t find a suitable halfway house for him. Over the weekend, Guay’s New Hampshire relatives changed their minds about supporting him, leaving authorities scrambling to find him a home, Tarr said. The state has no federal halfway houses.
“We had an offer of support from a family member, and we were going with that plan until Sunday, when a family member contacted the point person for my office on this case and withdrew the offer, basically saying that they had talked it over as a family and just didn’t feel it was something they could take on right now,” he said.
A religious organization in Manchester is working with Tarr’s office to help Guay find a home and job, Tarr said.
“My staff right now is working with that organization and Mr. Guay and trying to put together some of these pieces, most importantly is a place to reside right now,” he said. “He’ll be supervised very closely. He’s been in prison for 35 years, we have a lot of transitional challenges.”
New Hampshire Attorney General Kelly Ayotte had asked Tarr to help keep Guay out of the state if he were released, calling him “an unacceptable public safety risk to our citizens.” But Lindovski’s mother, who now lives in Canon City, Colo., called Friday’s ruling a “blessing in disguise” because she believed Guay would be monitored more closely in New Hampshire than in a large urban area.
Lindovski, a sixth-grader, was walking home from an afternoon square dance when Guay, who was 25, picked him up and drove him to the Lone Pine Hunters Club property in Hollis. When the boy escaped the car and ran into the woods, Guay raced after him, hit him on the head and then shot him in the eye.
Although New Hampshire has a civil commitment law targeting sexual predators, Guay is not a candidate for commitment here because he never actually sexually assaulted Lindovski. Officials believe that was his intent, but the issue never came up because he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. At the time of his conviction there was no sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole and no death penalty.
