Police: Not Enough Evidence to File More Charges Against Teen

A teen that police allege was texting prior to a two-vehicle accident that claimed the lives of two people will not face charges in relation to the accident.

Concord Police issued an alert on April 1 that Jacob Veroneau, 17, of Concord, was arrested and charged with falsifying physical evidence, a felony, for allegedly deleting text messages from his phone sometime after the Oct. 19, 2012, crash that took the lives of Jesse Wolfe, 31, of Concord, and Kyara Mailhot, 7, of Manchester.

Some have wondered why Veroneau isn’t being charged with negligent homicide or anything else in relation to the accident.

According to Lt. Timothy O’Malley, the head of the criminal investigations unit inside the department, fault for the accident was undetermined by investigators and there wasn’t enough evidence to file other charges.

Investigators in the case came to three potential conclusions for the cause or contributing factors of the accident on the evening in question.

One is that Wolfe failed to yield when turning from Iron Works Road onto Clinton Street before being struck by Veroneau’s SUV. The second was that the weather conditions of heavy rain and fog hindered both drivers. The third was whether Veroneau was distracted by the texting and caused the accident.

“We don’t know what caused the accident since we weren’t there,” he said.

O’Malley said investigators looked at all three factors but were unable to make a clear determination of fault. He said on the issue of the texting by Vernoneau, “we believe it was taking place” before the accident “but we don’t have enough evidence to say that there was a crime taking place.”

O’Malley added that it is hard for some people to understand why prosecutors weren’t filing more charges in the case but they were working with what they had.

“It was a very thorough investigation,” he said. “Texting is bad … destroying evidence is bad … but we don’t have enough evidence at this time to bring (Veroneau) up on (other) charges.”

O’Malley, however, said that if more evidence was obtained or found in the case, more charges could be filed. He also wouldn't comment on the current charge since it was an open investigation. 

Veroneau will be arraigned on the falsifying physical evidence felony charge on May 6.