A candlelight vigil is planned on Tuesday night in Franklin, New Hampshire, as the community grieves the loss of a mother and infant killed in an apparent murder-suicide over the weekend.
The vigil to honor the lives of 35-year-old Nicole Hughes and her 1-year-old daughter Ariella Bell is scheduled for Tuesday, at 8 p.m., at the Bessie Rowell Baseball Field in Franklin. Its organizers said 150 candles will be provided, but those attending are urged to bring their own if they can.
Authorities say Jamie Bell, 42, fatally shot Hughes and Ariella and wounded Hughes' 5-year-old daughter from another relationship in their home on Elkins Street before he was found dead hours later of an apparent suicide on the banks of the Merrimack River.
Jamie Bell was seen fleeing a home in Franklin on Saturday afternoon, the attorney general's office said. Neighbors said they had heard gunshots. Police arrived at the home to find Hughes and Ariella, her daughter with Jamie Bell, shot to death, authorities said.
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Investigators said Hughes and Jamie Bell were “intimate partners," but provided no further details on their relationship.
Hughes' 5-year-old daughter, whose name has not been released, was shot in the arm and suffered a cut on her back. She was taken to a hospital in Massachusetts and Franklin School Superintendent Dan LeGallo said on Facebook Sunday that she is "out of the hospital and recovering."
Police spent several hours searching for Bell, first identified as a person of interest, on foot and by helicopter. The attorney general's office had said he was armed and dangerous. He died of an apparent self-inflicted cut to his neck.
Autopsies on Bell, Hughes and their daughter conducted on Sunday and determined that the both Hughes and the daughter died of multiple gunshot wounds. Both deaths have been ruled homicides.
Bell's cause of death was determined to be a single, self-inflicted wound to his neck, and the manner of death was suicide.
