Former Owner Of Concord Heights Home, 2 Others Face Corpse, Falsifying Evidence Charges

CONCORD, NH — Three people have been arrested connected to a body found at a former drug den on Airport Road June 1.

Todd Spataro, 57, Jocelyn Cote, 47, and Ryan Holton, 34, all of unknown addresses in Concord, were accused of disposing of the body of Anthony Meunier, 49, on the property of the home at 58 Airport Road. Spataro was charged with two felony counts of falsifying physical evidence and an abuse of a corpse charge. He was arraigned in Concord District Court on Tuesday. Cote, Spataro’s gal pal, was also arraigned in court on Tuesday on a felony accomplice evidence charge and an accomplice abuse of corpse charge. Holton is scheduled to be arraigned in district court on Wednesday on a felony evidence count and an abuse of corpse charge. The abuse of corpse charges are misdemeanors.

Meunier was last seen in February 2023. He was reported missing in April 2023. About nine months later, police sent out a second alert concerning Meunier, which included footage of him using an ATM at the Bangor Savings Bank on Loudon Road on the day he was last seen.

The ATM machine is half a mile from where his body was found.

“The circumstances of Meunier’s death,” Deputy Chief John Thomas of the Concord Police Department said, “remain under investigation.”

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Police visited the Airport Road home twice during the past four months — in mid-March, after police were sent to a possible burglary and a smashed window at the home and again in late May. After dealing with the initial burglary call, police returned to the home with a search warrant after speaking with the new owner, a house flipper from Goffstown.

Patch later learned Angela Spataro, 32 at the time, a former resident at the home who was evicted after the foreclosure and sale to the house flipper, was arrested on a criminal trespass charge. Also arrested was Jay M. Pease, 36, of Concord, also for criminal trespass.

Police refused comment about the search warrant or arrests at the home.

Detectives returned to the house in late May, spent several days searching for evidence, and eventually brought in an excavator to dig up the south side of the property. During the dig, Meunier’s body was unearthed. Detectives also visited a home on Merrimack Street in Penacook, following up on leads.

No cause of death has been released.

Limited information about the charges against Spataro, Cote, and Holton was available at post-time, and police have not been speaking about the case. Thomas was unavailable for comment Tuesday and the city of Concord released a statement about the arrests after the district court closed for the day.

Patch learned last week, however, that officers executed a search warrant at a home in Bow connected to Cote on June 5.

It is unknown what police were looking for or what they found at the home.

Spataro, who was arrested in January on common nuisance, drug sale, and prescription drug possession charges connected to an incident two weeks before Meunier’s disappearance, saw his charges dismissed in late May.

After failing to appear, Cote helped him post $500 cash bail. Spataro, who listed himself as homeless on court paperwork, entered a plea of not guilty. She listed the Concord Coalition to End Homeless address on North Main Street as her new address in late April on a court change of address notification.

The charge, however, was nolle prossed on May 24. A public defender petitioned the court on May 1, objecting to the certification of drug analysis, and requested the drug analyst to appear at trial.

The $500 cash bail was returned to Cote on May 22, two days before the nolle prosse.

Spataro was still scheduled to appear in court on May 28 on two other acts prohibited charges, according to paperwork. Those charges, according to a court check last week, appeared to be active.

The home on Airport Road has been a magnet of issues for several years, and Spataro, according to superior court records and arrest reports on Patch, has an extensive criminal history. He has been arrested more than a dozen times during the past two decades on various charges, including robbery, forgery, theft, felon in possession of a dangerous weapon, reckless conduct, criminal mischief, disobeying an officer, violation of probation, and several acts prohibited counts.

Spataro has an active case in Merrimack County Superior Court involving three acts prohibited charges from February 2023 — after a direct indictment on April 17. He’s due in court on July 2 for a dispositional conference. Acts prohibited and falsifying physical evidence charges out of Hooksett against him from May 2022 were nolle prossed on May 1.

Holton, according to superior court records, was arrested on acts prohibited and reckless conduct-deadly weapon charges after an incident in Chichester in July 2014. He pleaded down to a vehicular assault charge in May 2015, receiving a $2,000 fine and a 10-month sentence, suspended for three years, after the completion of a diversion program. The drug charge was nolle prossed.

The state motioned in October 2015 to strike the nolle prosse on the drug charge, which was granted. Holton was also accused of violating a court order, and a jury was to hear the case before a sentence was amended with all but six months of the sentence suspended. He was also accused of violating probation or parole and pleaded guilty to the charge in October 2018, terminating his probation. Holton was sent to the Merrimack County Jail for six months and given 85 days of credit for time served. In January 2019, he was accused of violating probation or parole again. Several hearings were held, with Holton failing to appear. In February, Holton was ordered to pay $35 monthly for the court order violation.

The home was foreclosed upon and put up for auction in September 2023, according to a newspaper legal notice from July 2023. The city’s online assessing site had the Federal National Mortgage Association owning the property in November 2023 and then selling it to MDR Rehab and Development LLC in November 2023 for $180,000. MDR is a house flipper out of Goffstown, according to the Better Business Bureau.

Police asked anyone with information about this incident to contact the Criminal Investigations Division at 603-225-8600.

Tips can also be submitted anonymously through the Concord Regional Crimeline at 603-226-3100 or online at concordregionalcrimeline.com.

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