NASHUA – Coverage of crimes and their consequences invariably rank among the most-read stories in newspapers and on news websites. And The Telegraph, for going on 183 years, the local paper of record, is no exception.

These are also the stories that, by their very nature, trigger the widest range of emotions. Today, we look back at some of the notable crimes that made news in 2014 in Greater Nashua, and there were many.

The one that most would agree tops the field in the anger and outrage department is the homicide, by blunt-force trauma, of 3-year-old Brielle Gage two days before Thanksgiving.

“Why didn’t someone act to take the children out of that house?” Board of Aldermen president David Deane wondered, a couple of weeks after it became known that Brielle was one of several children of 25-year-old Katlyn Marin, who had been arrested previously on allegations of abusing children.

“The system failed that little girl,” Deane said, reflecting people’s anguish.

That Brielle’s death may have been preventable added an extra layer of frustration to the reaction. Particularly distressing was the way events in the months before Brielle’s death played out.

After the court removed at least some of Marin’s children from her custody, presumably including Brielle, during a DCYF investigation into abuse allegations, a family court judge in May ordered the kids returned to Marin; a day later, Marin and her then-boyfriend, Michael Rivera, were arrested for allegedly beating an 8-year-old boy at their home on Oak Street.

When news broke that prosecutors had to drop the single charge of assault against Marin, outrage bubbled anew.

This is a disgrace!” a Telegraph reader commented online. “Something is definitely wrong with our justice system.”

“These kids dont have a voice, but the abusers do,” wrote another.

Today, nearly six weeks after Brielle died from her injuries, nobody has been charged in her death. And police, the attorney general’s office and DCYF officials have declined to provide any information on the investigation, leaving plenty of people, including members of Brielle’s extended family, wondering whether anyone will ever be charged in connection with her death.

Readers also paid close attention to the December trial of Nashua martial arts instructor Aldo Batista dos Santos, who was accused and ultimately found guilty of sexually assaulting one of his students over several months in 2012.

The victim, who was 13 at the time and is now a 15-year-old high school sophomore, testified at length at dos Santos’ trial, a six-day proceeding that culminated on Monday, Dec. 15, with guilty verdicts on all 12 counts – two felonies and 10 misdemeanors – lodged against the 39-year-old former Nashuan.

Several people with a legal background or experience with jury trials agreed that this was a case in which the jury saw the victim as a credible, truthful individual who, although misstating some exact dates during testimony, never intended to bend the truth or fabricate facts.

Many veteran observers also admitted surprise at the verdict, some saying they felt that defense attorney Tim Bush pointed out enough inconsistencies in the dates and some of the facts presented at trial to instill sufficient reasonable doubt in jurors’ minds.

There was also considerable reader curiosity when the Nashua Police SWAT team, equipped with helmets, rifles, battering rams and shields, descended on Lillian’s Motel in September, taking into custody a Massachusetts man wanted in connection with a deadly home invasion in Lawrence, Mass. A stun grenade was used to apprehended Ricardo Ortiz Hernandez, of Dorchester, Mass., who was charged with being a fugitive from justice.

The persistent scourge that is domestic violence made news several times during 2014, the ugliest incidents being a pair of murder-suicides that claimed four lives – two in Amherst and two in Nashua – both involving family members.

In September, beloved longtime teacher Elizabeth Davis Trombly, 69, died of gunshot wounds at the hands of her older son, 35-year-old John Trombly. Their bodies were found in their 1 Meadow Lane home by police responding to a welfare-check call.

In late November, longtime couple Meg Halley and Al Rediker, who attended Nashua’s annual Downtown Holiday Stroll that evening, were walking toward their Fairmount Heights home when Rediker, for reasons that aren’t completely clear, stabbed Halley to death on the Baldwin Street Bridge.

He then holed himself up in their home at 1 Hutchinson St., drawing police SWAT team presence before he took his own life.

A large number of readers also followed closely coverage of the discovery of a body in Mine Falls Park in late March, which by all indications turned out to be a suicide, and a stabbing at a Brookline house party in May that resulted in serious injuries to Lyndeborough resident John Hyde and the arrest of Timothy S. Sullivan, also of Lyndeborough.

The coverage of the incident also included stories about members of the community coming together to raise money to help Hyde with medical expenses.

Area residents, especially Nashuans, also kept a close eye throughout 2014 on Telegraph coverage of the meteoric rise in drug overdoses, many involving heroin and some ending in death.

The sheer jump in overdoses, which police and other experts attributed to cheap prices and easy availability, astounded even veteran law enforcement officers and emergency medical personnel.

Police pushed back, ramping up undercover work and making a series of arrests in an attempt to dent the trend. A companion Telegraph story announced in November the arrests of nine people on heroin and cocaine sales.

Up there in popularity among readers and website visitors were incidents like the annoying at best, and potentially deadly at worst, shooting spree that caused thousands of dollars of damage to around 65 cars in Nashua and Hudson over a week in June.

Police didn’t take it lightly, soon arresting two 18-year-olds and charging them with felony-level offenses.

Also catching readers’ eyes were stories that fall into the category of “what were they thinking?”

Former State Rep. David Campbell’s actions after he accidentally ran over a bunch of ducks in the driveway of Nashua’s Crowne Plaza Hotel in just before Christmas 2013 tops that list.

In the fallout, which included a New Hampshire attorney general’s investigation that concluded that he was not “truthful,” Campbell decided to not run for re-election, and Thomas Pappas, Campbell’s friend and attorney, resigned from the Nashua Police Commission.

More salacious was the story headlined “Nashua mom charged with facilitating daughter’s sex work,” which covered the arrests of the mother and daughter on related charges.

Then, there was the story about the Nashua woman who was charged with soliciting inside a public library after she chose to solicit an undercover police officer from Massachusetts.

And speeding on the highway, while not exactly a news flash, does tend to make news when the traffic officer clocks you at 132 mph, which was the case for the driver of a Toyota Supra on the F.E. Everett Turnpike.

Dean Shalhoup can be reached at 594-6443 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com. Also follow Shalhoup on Twitter (@Telegraph_DeanS).