NASHUA — Michael C. Monroe, the former Arlington Street resident arrested in August 1994, convicted in November 1995 and sentenced in February 1996 to 40 years to life in State Prison, is scheduled to go before a Superior Court judge this afternoon on his recently filed petition to suspend the remainder of the 40-year minimum of the sentence.

Monroe, now 72, has served 25 years and 9 months of the sentence. At the time of sentencing, he was granted 528 days credit for time spent in jail awaiting trial.

Together, the 25 years and 9 months of prison time he has served and the 528 days of credit he was awarded add up to roughly two-thirds of his original minimum sentence, the threshold at which defendants are allowed to motion the court to suspend the remaining one-third of the original sentence.

In one of the most recent filings in Monroe’s case summary, filed on Oct. 27, is a motion asking the court to expedite the hearing on Monroe’s motion to suspended the remainder of his sentence “due to recent end-of-life diagnosis,” which suggests Monroe has a terminal illness. Judge Jacalyn Colburn, in whose courtroom today’s hearing is scheduled to take place, granted the motion the following day.

A Superior Court jury convicted Monroe on Nov. 20, 1995, on one count of second-degree murder for the stabbing death of Theresa Levesque, his 66-year-old mother-in-law, whose body was found in her home at 74 Marshall St. on March 7, 1993.

Nearly 18 months after Levesque was killed, police issued an arrest warrant for Monroe. He was located at a residence in Jacksonville, North Carolina, where he was living at the time, and taken into custody by local police and Nashua detectives who traveled to Jacksonville during the investigation.

The case would divide Levesque’s large, extended family and rattle a normally quiet neighborhood of tidy, mostly single-family homes set between two city parks and playgrounds.

Levesque’s home abutted one of them, Lyons Field, where her grieving family members decided within days of her death to raise funds to build a playground in a section of the park near her home.

Over time, Monroe would lose two Supreme Court appeals, while his attorneys and prosecutors filed a litany of motions over issues such as suppression, a new-trial motion, extensions, Supreme Court documents and the release of transcripts of previous testimony and trial exhibits.

Today’s hearing is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. in Colburn’s courtroom at Hillsborough County Superior Court South.

Dean Shalhoup may be reached at 594-1256 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.

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