TOLD HE WAS ‘GOOD TO GO’
Released early by N.H. parole board, now North Andover murder suspect
Despite the warnings of a previous victim, the New Hampshire Adult Parole Board conferred less than 25 seconds before freeing a man now facing a murder charge in the Bay State.
Brian Chevalier was paroled four months before Wendi Rose Davidson was found dead last month in North Andover. In October, a frightened woman Chevalier kidnapped 15 years ago testified against his release. Today, Chevalier will appear in a California court trying to send him to Massachusetts after his capture in Mexico.
Neighbors and advocates now want to know why Chevalier was let go after serving less than half of a potential 30-year sentence.
“That’s awful. When I heard that, to me, it is beyond belief,” said Marie Couture, 49, a neighbor of slain accountant Davidson. “They need to reform the parole system. I am all for redemption, but you have to draw the line at someone who is a violent offender. The job of the justice system is to keep people safe. This was a failure.
“Every time I drive by that house — which is every day — I think about it,” Couture said. Yesterday, Mother’s Day, she said, “I thought about how her kids are without a mother today.”
On Oct. 19, after a brief consult, the New Hampshire Adult Parole Board wished Chevalier good luck and told him, “You’re good to go,” after he’d served 13 years of a potential 30-year sentence for kidnapping a Jaffrey, N.H., woman in 2003 he told board members he’d met on Match.com. Chevalier was acquitted of 10 other charges, including aggravated sexual assault.
The victim told the board in a written statement read aloud that Chevalier, who she referred to by his inmate No. 68651, was on parole when she first started dating him. “Do not underestimate him again,” she beseeched the panel to no avail, according to an audio recording of the hearing. “I have never been able to relax. Hypervigilance is exhausting. I continue to look over my shoulder even though I have moved thousands of miles away. I underestimated the offender when I broke off all contact with him weeks before the assault. I will not make that mistake again. I do not have a presence on social media. There are no photos of me in circulation. I did not publish my engagement announcement. I have to explain to my employers why ... I will not allow them to put my picture on staff web pages. I own no property. I have no utility bills in my name.”
The board acknowledged the woman’s fear and suffering, but ordered Chevalier released Dec. 14 — four months before Davidson, a 49-year-old mother of two sons, was found April 21, strangled in the basement of her home on Lincoln Street. Four days later, Chevalier, her former fiance, was arrested in Mexico and turned over to authorities in California. He is fighting extradition to Massachusetts, where he’s charged in Lawrence District Court with Davidson’s murder.
“Anybody who has the power to either keep a guy locked up or let him go, and has reasonable grounds to believe this person could kill, is obviously gambling with human life when they set this person free,” said renowned victims-rights attorney Wendy Murphy, a professor of sexual-violence law at New England School of Law. “Having somebody die as the price for holding a parole board accountable is too great a cost to society.”
Davidson’s son Joshua Davidson, 22, declined comment on the parole board’s decision on behalf of his family.
State Rep. Dave Testerman, a Republican who sits on the New Hampshire House Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety, said Chevalier’s release may spark reform.
“It makes you think. We would look into that, probably talk about it over the summer if we feel it’s worthy of it,” Testerman said. “But (reform) needs to be more than just a one-off.”
Neither New Hampshire parole board chairwoman Donna Sytek nor other members could be reached for comment.
Conditions of Chevalier’s parole included that he be under “intensive supervision” for the first 90 days and that he live with his wheelchair-bound mother in Merrimack, N.H.
“I’ve gotta take care of her. I’m 51. She’s not much longer, so, I’ve got to start thinking about her,” said Chevalier — the only witness to testify on his behalf. He assured the board he had money to live on, a job lined up and “a really good future to look forward to.”
But, Murphy said, “Name one guy up for parole who didn’t put on an act for the board. If you buy what these guys are selling, you probably shouldn’t be on the parole board. If his sentence was up to 30 years, somebody must have thought he was very dangerous. He doesn’t have a ‘right’ to be free. We can’t keep excusing the bad decisionmaking on that hindsight is 20/20. Foresight is 20/20, too. It’d be one thing if they let him out 20 years ago. Then you might say it wasn’t the parole board’s fault. But four months? How much more wrong could the parole board have been?”
Chevalier is scheduled to appear before a superior court judge today in California for an identification hearing. Imperial County District Attorney Gilbert G. Otero said the hearing is to prove Chevalier is the correct person officials in California are trying to extradite back to Massachusetts.
‘Having somebody die as the price for holding a parole board accountable is too great a cost to society.’ — WENDY MURPHY, victim rights attorney