NEWPORT — When a caravan of police vehicles descended early one morning last week upon a dilapidated red brick home behind a leaning, broken fence and overgrown weeds in the yard it did not take long for the public to take notice and assume why.
“What’s going on in Kellyville at Jeff’s House(?}”, a poster on the Newport’s Finest Facebook group asked, identifying the property’s resident by name.
The poster’s question was followed by 125 comments, many of them openly speculating that police were combing the home in search of evidence that would tie its occupant, Jeffrey Champagne to — as town gossip has it — a string of unsolved Upper Valley murders of women in the late ‘70s through ‘80s.
A couple hours later on the morning of May 21, in response to what was attracting the public’s attention, the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office issued a news release advising that multiple state, federal and local law enforcement agencies — including members from the state’s cold case unit — were at a residence in Newport to carry out “court-authorized search warrants.”
And as speculation guessing at the purpose of the police operation mounted across social media throughout the morning, the Attorney General’s Office issued a second news release elaborating the operation demonstrated the state’s “dedication to investigating unresolved cases” while in the same breath cautioning the public “against speculating or drawing any conclusions from these efforts.”
“The Connecticut River Valley Killer” is the sobriquet given for an unknown male who investigators have believed is responsible for at least seven murders of young women whose bodies were found in Upper Valley towns from 1977 to 1988.
Because the skeletal remains of two victims, both nurses, were discovered within a thousand feet of each other in the woods along Sugar River in the Kellyville section of Newport in 1985 and 1986, the person behind the murders is also sometimes referred to as “The Kellyville Killer.”
The Sugar River can be seen on an embankment from Champagne’s home at the corner of John Stark Highway and Ayers Road in Kellyville.
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When a Valley News reporter and photographer showed up unannounced at the house on Wednesday. Champagne answered a knock.
Barefoot, smoothly shaven and wearing a dirty black pullover short-sleeved shirt and blue jeans, Champagne sported long, shaggy curly gray hair that touched his shoulder blades.
He was friendly and answered a reporter’s questions as he stood on his porch, afternoon traffic on John Stark Highway rushing past.
Frequently his replies, however, were elliptical, fanciful and rambling.
When asked if he was concerned about the state police searching his property eight days earlier, Champagne initially responded, “I don’t know. That’s what they put together. It didn’t make any sense. (I) just went along with what they put together” in about a 25-minute interview.
Champagne said he is 68 years old and has lived in the house at 1 Ayers Road since he was two.
His mother, Pat, was a nurse who according to her obituary in 1983, graduated from Stevens High School in Claremont and the Yale-New Haven School of Nursing. She died at age 57 at home after a “sudden illness,” her obituary said.
His father, Robert, who worked in the meat department at a supermarket, died at age 54, a little more than three months after his wife in early 1984 at Newport Hospital after a “brief illness,” according to his obituary.
Champagne said he spent “half a year” at Kimball Union Academy in Meriden and graduated from what is now Newport Middle High School in 1973.
He worked for a period of time in “shipping and assembly” at Newport firearms manufacturer Sturm, Ruger & Co. and as a “weaver” at the former Homestead Industries woolen mill in Claremont, but now relies upon Social Security for income.
Champagne said he spends most of his time inside his house, “sleeps” a lot and has “not received TV since 1984” and “threw out” his computer “because of FCC terrorism.”
But he said he does talk on the phone with a stock broker at Charles Schwab.
Asked if the rumors are true that he is the Connecticut River Valley Killer, Champagne replied, “pretty unlikely,” and laughed.
“I’ve been here 66 years. No. Their sound system is getting everything out of line. But that’s their world. Whoever they are. Whatever they are,” he said.
Asked again if he was responsible for the deaths of the women who had been victims of a suspected serial killer, Champagne replied, “Why would I murder a woman? You know, they had no reason for it. No. Wrong outfit.”
Champagne said he wasn’t sure what to make of the police search of his property.
“They presented their paperwork but it didn’t have any relevancy to anything I understand. No connection with the party they spoke of,” he said.
During the search, Champagne said he spent time at the Newport Police station and then was given “a ride back” to a parking lot on the other side of Sugar River where he waited in a car while the investigation continued.
Newport Police Chief Stephen Lee declined to comment on the investigation.
Returning to the question of whether he harmed or killed the victims of the unsolved murders, Champagne replied “I didn’t even know them.”
Reminded that a person does not have to know someone to hurt or kill them — and requesting a direct “yes” or “no” answer to the question — Champagne repeated his earlier response, saying “Pretty unlikely. Not in my world at all … not in the slightest.”
Investigators took with them two “antique Samurai swords” that he kept in a gun cabinet and “bush” knives used to cut meat and a “meat cleaver” that had belonged to his father, a supermarket butcher, Champagne said.
Champagne said he had been questioned by police in their investigation of the 1984 unsolved murder of Valley Regional Hospital nurse Ellen Fried, whose skeletal remains were found in a wooded area near the Sugar River in Kellyville more than a year later.
“They asked me years ago (about Fried). So that’s all. I don’t know Ellen Fried,” he said.
In a bygone time, the rumors about Champagne might have remained confined to idle gossip in a barber shop chair, under the hair dryers at the beauty salon or around the water cooler at the office. But in the age of compulsive social media posting a fountain of misinformation erupted about Champagne, much of it recycling old rumors against an individual who has never been charged with a crime.
People on Facebook claimed that Champagne was dead (he’s alive); that he had moved and is now living in Florida (he hasn’t); that his parents died “suspicious deaths” (there is no evidence of that); that he had a twin brother named Rodney (his late younger brother’s name was Brian. More about “Rodney” below).
“Pretty much around here growing up everybody’s heard the stories” about Champagne, said Kim King, 26, who grew up in Newport. She was with her fiance, Tony Tassone, also a Newport native, at the Best Dressed Laundromat in a shopping center a few miles from where police had searched Champagne’s home a couple days earlier.
“It’s a small town so once things like this happen it spreads quickly,” King said of the police operation.
Tassone, 20, who works at Dollar General, said he also had been aware of the rumors growing up and read the speculation on social media.
“You can believe whatever you want, but you got to be aware it might not be true,” Tassone said, adding that “even if he did this horrendous thing he has a right to privacy until he is proven guilty.”
Neighbors in Kellyville and people who have known Champagne describe him as intelligent but also, at least when he used to be seen in public, sometimes exhibiting oddball behavior.
Lance Avery, who owns Avery Auto and Marine a few miles from Champagne’s property, remembers riding bicycles and snowmobiles with him in the Kellyville neighborhood. As kids, Avery and his older brother, J.J., joined Champagne in building model cars from kits in an accessory building on the Champagne family’s property.
But Avery said Champagne could come across as “a little off,” noting how he used to be seen when he was younger lifting weights outside in his yard and mowing the lawn in a leopard-print Speedo.
For a long time Chamagne had a sign in his yard that announced “Playboy bunnies welcome,” according to Avery.
People who know Champagne said that even as an adult he had imaginary friend, “Rodney,” for whom he would pack an extra lunch and bring it with him to work and set up across from him on the cafeterias table.
At the same time, Champagne had affinity for a little financial wheeling and dealing, according to Avery.
“I know (Champagne) used to trade stocks on the computer,” said Avery leaning against a watercraft outside his shop on John Stark Highway.
Champagne also dabbled in real estate, Avery said, investing at one point in Florida real estate.
“He was different,” Avery said. “But he was a good kid, always respected his elders and was very polite.”
The rumors have made the man a pariah in Newport, said Avery.
“He can’t even go grocery shopping in his own town,” he said.
“I doubt that he did it,” Avery said of the crimes, adding “I have no evidence. That’s my personal feeling.”
Shannon Gallien, who lives with her daughter and mother two houses over on John Stark Highway from where the rumored suspect lives, said sometimes it can feel “a little bit creepy” living so close to a person rumored to be responsible for monstrous crimes.
But she personally has never witnessed anything to cause her alarm and said the Newport community is rushing to judgment without proven evidence of guilt.
“He never comes out of the house,” Gallien said. “But would you if you were accused of those things like he has been?”
New Hampshire Attorney General Office spokesperson Michael Garrity, apprised of the Valley News interview with Champagne, said via email on Friday that the office would have no further comment on the “ongoing investigation,” adding that “any updates” arising out of the investigation that might be relevant for victims’ family members “will be made to them directly.”
“The recent effort in Newport was the direct result of several years of follow-up investigation and analysis by investigators. The initiation of this search substantially pre-dated” the public social media frenzy over the property search in Newport, Garrity noted.
“Our investigative actions are driven by evidence and investigative needs — law enforcement legal and ethical obligations are not and cannot be subordinated to public calls for action. Media or advocacy efforts do not change the evidence, our professional responsibilities relating to asking for court authority to take investigative actions, or the judiciary’s obligations in ensuring that legal standards are met,” he said.
Asked if there was any message on his behalf that he would like communicated to the public, Champagne said “I think there’s too much in the negative publicity they got out there, whatever the electronics is. I don’t want to do anything other than stay private. This is only a private home.”
Champagne paused before speaking again.
“This is only a private home,” he repeated.
Contact John Lippman at jlippman@vnews.com.
