For a couple of months now, every time he starts talking about one of Nashua’s most sensational murder trials, prosecutor-turned-Nashua-defense-attorney Kent Barker keeps saying things like “you can’t write a script this good.”

But he can – because, along with a bunch of other litigants from both sides of the courtroom, he did.

The other thing Barker often says is “you can’t make this stuff up,” and that’s true, as anyone who knows even a little about the February 1959 murder that led to one of Nashua’s most sensational trials can attest.

We speak of the infamous Martineau-Nelson case, whose ironies, coincidences, twists and turns kept much of southern New Hampshire hanging on
every word of testimony for a solid six weeks some 55 years ago this autumn.

Awhile ago, Barker began reading about the case, growing more fascinated with every document he found.

As immediate past president of the Nashua Bar Association, Barker is now on its executive board, a two-year post that comes with an informal title of event-organizer, which for a trade organization of barristers means putting together things like mock trials, awards receptions, law-education seminars and such, with an eye on working in here and there events or presentations of general community interest.

So, Barker figured, why not share with his fellow members of the legal community some of the ins and outs of this most gripping, “you can’t make this stuff up” proceeding that holds such a prominent place in Nashua legal history.

The unfortunate part is that space considerations and logistics make it impossible to open the presentation to the public, Barker said.

But among his goals, he said, is to find a venue for future presentations that gives the option of inviting people outside association membership.

As for members, this is one presentation you don’t want to miss. So if you’ve missed a few meetings or have been meaning to renew your membership, now is the time. If you didn’t get Barker’s announcement, the event is Thursday at 5:30 p.m. at Superior Court on Spring Street.

So what’s the big deal about a 55-year-old murder and trial? We had plenty before that and have had plenty more since, so why this hoopla over a case that didn’t even involve a Nashua, or even a New Hampshire, resident?

Well, as the great 20th century American statesman Curly Q. Howard famously proclaimed, “Truth is stranger than fiction, judgey wudgey.”

And so it is with State v. Frederick Martineau and Russell Nelson, a pair of Rhode Island thugs who one cold February night went to visit a rich industrialist named Maurice Gagnon to try, so the story goes, to talk him out of testifying against them in some burglary they had allegedly perpetrated at Gagnon’s Lincoln, R.I. home.

I last revisited this iconic episode of Law and Order: Nashua four years ago in my little retrospective of famous local trials in the wake of one that followed one of the area’s most heinous crimes ever – that of Steven Spader and Christopher Gribble, the captain and lieutenant respectively in the Mont Vernon home invasion, assault and murder.

Barker said it was that essay that inspired him to collect several associates in the profession, namely attorneys Tim Kerrigan, Jack White, Liz Perry and Tony Sculimbrene, plus county prosecutor Catherine Devine and even the venerable retired judge Bernard Hampsey, and find a way to condense into an hour or so the 10-month ordeal that began with a late-night murder, involved some really clever, if not unorthodox, police work and finally, the grueling, six-week trial that came literally to a resounding verdict at the stroke of midnight on Saturday, Nov. 14.

In case Barker is able someday to publicly reprise the presentation, I won’t give away the juiciest little nuggets of detail, but will say that it gets right into some familiar sights and names, one of which belongs to a retired Nashua police officer who remembers the night of the murder pretty well – not only because he was walking the beat that frigid night but also because he and his partner made first contact with the perps right there in the presence of the famous Yankee Flyer diner and in sight of the old Central Variety across Main Street.

OK, he’s Bill Quigley, the long-retired police chief who was barely a year into his NPD career when he and rookie Officer Don Bazin sensed something amiss when they saw a lone Chevy with Rhode Island plates cruising down an otherwise empty Main Street.

That would turn out to be the would-be getaway car, but thanks to Quigley’s and Bazin’s alertness and these Rhode Island guys not being the brightest bulbs in the circuit, their little plan fell apart before they could say “you got nuthin’ on me, copper.”

Barker said he followed up reading news accounts with digging out as much of the case file as he could. “I was reading the opinion, and thought, ‘this is wild stuff. The more I read, the more I found out … it turns out that they (police) had these guys at the station for hours before the body (of Gagnon) was even found.”

So, here are the cops, knowing Martineau and Nelson and the Chevy’s driver, a Providence character named Robert Almonte, were up to no good, sweating them in interview rooms to come clean about why they were hanging around downtown Nashua in the middle of a freezing night.

In the meantime, the lifeless body of Maurice Gagnon lay in his brand-new Cadillac Eldorado where Martineau and Nelson ditched it – a parking lot at the northwest corner of Temple and Cottage streets, where the former Indian Head Plaza is now.

Theory is that Martineau shot Gagnon, then Nelson, who was driving, got a little nervous and pulled off the road first chance he got.

The men fled, but Quigley, Bazin and a couple of other cops who had joined them tracked both down and dragged them into headquarters.

It wasn’t until noon the next day, probably 9-10 hours after Gagnon was killed and the car ditched, that his body was discovered, spotted by a couple of Temple Street School kids who, on their way home for lunch, decided to check out that “really neat car” sitting in the parking lot.

There’s tons more to this saga, and that’s why I’m going to prod Barker and my other Bar Association friends for an encore – this time, in a big enough space for non-members to come watch.

Dean Shalhoup’s column appears Saturdays in The Telegraph. He can be reached at 594-6443 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com. Also, follow Shalhoup on Twitter (@Telegraph_DeanS).

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