MERRIMACK – Lindsey Steinetz cannot imagine her lifelong friend Ian MacPherson carrying or even owning a gun, much less shooting anyone. The Ian MacPherson she knows, Steinetz said Monday, "is a real sweetheart" who is afraid of guns.

"It just doesn’t make sense," added Steinetz, who gradually fell out of touch with her onetime close friend, a Merrimack High School classmate with whom she graduated in 2002. "He certainly wasn’t in a right state of mind."

Steinetz, a Nashua resident, is one of scores of people close to MacPherson expressing disbelief that the kid, and man, they knew or know is now in jail, accused of shooting two Manchester police officers and triggering an intense manhunt through several West Side neighborhoods early Friday morning.

"We’re here to support Ian … he’s been suffering from mental illness issues for a long, long time," an emotional Russell MacPherson, Ian MacPherson’s father, said following his son’s brief arraignment Monday morning in Manchester district court.

"Hopefully, he’s going to get help for that," he said.

Ian MacPherson waived formal arraignment and was not present in the courtroom, although he was reportedly in the building at the time. His father, standing with several other family members, held back tears while briefly addressing media representatives.

The younger MacPherson, who is charged with two felony counts of attempted capital murder and one misdemeanor offense of resisting detention, is scheduled for a probable cause hearing at 11 a.m. Friday, May 27. Judge Gregory Michael ordered him held without bail pending the hearing.

Brien Sweet said he met MacPherson in either eighth or ninth grade "right after my first band broke up. We immediately started playing music together," Sweet said, recalling that MacPherson introduced him to new bands "that I still obsess over today," including The Cure, Depeche Mode and The Smiths.

While MacPherson was part of what Sweet called "a diverse group of friends," it also seemed to him that his friend was misunderstood by a lot of people. In MacPherson, Sweet saw a "funny, passionate guy … always concerned about the well-being of those within his circle," he said.

The last time Sweet saw MacPherson was roughly six years ago, when he went to a performance by Sweet’s band. "He seemed in good spirits … he’d just overcome a dark period," Sweet said.

For Steinetz, MacPherson’s apparent struggle with mental illness hits home. "I’ve had mental health issues, I know what it’s like … that’s why it just killed me to find out what (allegedly) happened," she said, referring to the Manchester shootings.

Steinetz said her struggles with mental illness led to her hospitalization a number of years ago at the New Hampshire State Hospital in Concord, where MacPherson also did a stint. Although their stays didn’t overlap and she knows little about MacPherson’s case, Steinetz said there’s little doubt that what she calls the "revolving door" of patients coming and going – many times because they lack adequate health insurance – didn’t do a lot to help MacPherson.

Until not long ago, Steinetz said she’d occasionally see MacPherson walking in downtown Nashua and would stop to say hello.

"Ian was Goth … he might have looked scary, but he was my friend and I knew he wasn’t like that," she said, referring to the music-inspired fad characterized by dark clothing, heavy, dark makeup and an abundance of jewelry.

But the last time she saw him, MacPherson seemed to stare right through her. "It was like he wasn’t even there," Steinetz said. "It was sad … he’s actually a real sweetheart. I don’t think he even realized he needed help."

Since his arrest, numerous friends of MacPherson’s family have posted messages of support on social media sites, many lamenting the fact that two police officers were injured because of his alleged actions.

Sweet, MacPherson’s friend since middle school, said he knew him as passionate and someone "who just wanted to be loved. But he just always seemed to be struck by bad luck."

Dean Shalhoup can be reached at 594-6443, dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com or @Telegraph_DeanS. Material from The Associated Press was also used in this report.

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