Union Leader staff writer Kathryn Marchocki reports. Excerpt:
MANCHESTER — The boyfriend of Amie Lynn Riley, whose decomposed body was found in a swamp Saturday, voluntarily submitted to nearly three hours of questioning by Manchester police detectives yesterday and took a polygraph, which he was told he failed, he said.
“I got nothing to hide. Absolutely nothing to hide,” said Joseph A. Pelletier IV, 22, of Lincoln.
Sobbing in his father’s arms outside the police station after the grueling session, Pelletier said police told him he missed one question.
Pelletier’s father, Joseph A. Pelletier III, said his son was asked “does he feel he may have had some impact on her death or something like that and he (his son) said ‘no’ and it spiked.”
Polygraph results are not admissible in court and often are regarded as questionable, said Manchester attorney Richard McNamara. Moreover, that Pelletier said police told him he failed the test doesn’t necessarily mean he had.
Police are permitted under the Constitution to lie to people they interview, Manchester criminal defense attorney Cathy Green said, speaking generally.
“They can lie about their investigation. They can lie about the results of their investigation. And that’s generally held to be a permissible interrogation technique,” Green said.
Assistant Attorney General David A. Ruoff, who is in charge of the case, would not confirm or deny whether Pelletier took a polygraph. Nor would he confirm or deny Pelletier’s account that he was told he failed it.
Pelletier said he also gave police a DNA sample during his interview.
A composite sketch was made of a man about two to three months ago based on a description given by a female witness at the Hog’s Trough Saloon, a source said.
Ruoff acknowledged a composite exists, but said it hasn’t been made public because there is no evidence of a link to Riley’s disappearance.
“We have no evidence that the composite we have, which is the result of an interview from an unrelated incident not involving Amie Riley, is connected to her disappearance,” Ruoff said.
The composite is based on information given by a female cook at the club interviewed weeks to a month after Riley’s disappearance.
“Because the interview was generated as part of the background investigation on this case, it’s still part of the case file even though we think it’s part of the file that doesn’t bear any relevance to her disappearance,” he added.
Riley’s death is being treated as suspicious. Experts have yet to rule on cause and manner of death given the body’s advanced decomposition.
Pelletier said he first reported Riley, 20, missing to Manchester police after he couldn’t find her at the Hog’s Trough Saloon on Lincoln Street where he earlier dropped her and a friend off on Aug. 15.
Pelletier said he agreed to take a polygraph last month when a Manchester detective came to Lincoln to go over the statement he gave police.
Riley’s nude body was found six days before the scheduled polygraph lying face down in the water off Stark Lane near Interstate 293. A small purse, black bustier and other dark-colored garments were scattered along the dirt trail leading to the water.
Pelletier said Riley, who dressed almost exclusively in the “Goth” look, was wearing a black bustier, black skirt and long, black coat with a feathery boa fringe when he dropped her off at the Hog’s Trough Saloon.
Pelletier had been living with Riley, first at his father’s Londonderry townhouse and then in their own apartment at 315 Cedar St., before she went missing on Aug. 15.
“I loved her, you know?” a weeping Pelletier said.
“She’s unique. She’s beautiful. She’s brilliant,” he said.
Update 20 March 2021: Despite failing a police-administered polygraph “test,” Joseph A. Pelletier IV was not involved in the murder of his girlfriend, Amie Lynn Riley. The perpetrator was a woman named Carrie Menard, who pled guilty to the crime in 2006.