Ryan Barden, age 30, last known address, 56 Grant St., Laconia

NASHUA — In what essentially amounted to a bit of judicial housekeeping, Ryan Barden — the man accused of murdering Nashua resident Jared Daly in August — was sentenced Tuesday to three concurrent 6-month terms in jail, all suspended, after he agreed to plead guilty to three drug-possession charges unrelated to the murder case.

Barden, 30, entered the guilty pleas in exchange for the identical sentences, which are suspended for one year.

The charges stem from Barden’s arrest back in February outside the Rite-Aid store on Lowell Road in Hudson, according to the prosecutor, Assistant County Attorney Cassie Devine.

Police were called to the store for a report of people going through trash outside the store, and upon arrival located and questioned a man, later identified as Barden, and a woman, Devine said.

Given consent to search Barden’s vehicle, officers found methamphetamine hidden in the car and subsequently took Barden into custody.

After being granted a warrant to search the car, police found additional drugs, including fentanyl and Suboxone, along with various drug-related paraphernalia.

Devine and Attorney Paul Borchardt, who is representing Barden, told Judge Charles Temple they agreed that adjudicating the case with the plea and sentencing agreement was appropriate and satisfactory in light of Barden’s murder case, which is proceeding in Hillsborough County Superior Court South.

Barden faces two counts of second-degree murder, one of which accuses him of “knowingly causing the death” of Daly “by striking him in the head,” and the other of “recklessly” causing Daly’s death by “striking him in the head under circumstances manifesting an extreme indifference to the value of human life,” according to the complaints.

The next hearing in the case is a status conference, which is currently scheduled for Feb. 8 in Temple’s courtroom.

At about the same time as Barden was being investigated as a suspect in Daly’s murder, Nashua police arrested Barden and charged him with one count each of identity fraud and breach of bail, based on alleged crimes he was accused of perpetrating just before a task force located him hiding in a residence on Stark Road in Belmont and took him into custody on murder allegations.

Those two charges were later nol prossed, or dropped, according to Barden’s case file.

The file also shows Barden has two other drug-related cases currently in progress in Merrimack County.

One involves his arrest in Bow in November 2020, when he was charged with two counts of possession of controlled drugs.

The other involves his arrest on three counts of possession of controlled drugs that took place in Belmont earlier this year. A settlement conference has been held in that case, and its outcome is scheduled to be the topic of a Dec. 21 hearing, according to the file.

Meanwhile, prosecutors and defense attorneys continue to collect and pore over in the neighborhood of 1,000 pages of discovery, a situation that prompted the prosecutor, Assistant Attorney General Heather Cherniske, to motion the court for an extension of the deadline to submit discovery materials.

Temple, the judge, granted the motion, which pushed the deadline to Dec. 30.

Barden’s lead attorney, Jaye Rancourt, assented to both motions, meaning she agreed not to object to them.

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

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