Investigation Of Sex Trafficked Woman At ER Leads To Huge Concord Drug Busts, Arrests

CONCORD, NH — During a two-week period in March, Concord police made two huge drug busts in Penacook — hauling in nearly 1,100 grams of fentanyl, 140 grams of methamphetamine, and more than 400 grams of cocaine and crack cocaine, and more than $17,000 in cash, after an investigation of a woman who was possibly being sex trafficked in the city.

At 1 a.m. on March 10, police were sent to Concord Hospital on Pleasant Street to investigate a possible assault and an unresponsive woman.

Hospital security informed an officer that a woman had been brought to the emergency room by a man and woman an hour earlier. A nurse reported the woman was bruised all over her body and could not speak.

While at the ER, the woman, 29, was intubated, and her condition appeared to deteriorate. Security told the officer the woman had been brought into the hospital three weeks before and requested a sexual assault nurse examination kit because she mentioned being trafficked.

The officer then spoke with the woman who brought the victim to the hospital.

She said she did not know the victim but received a message from a man named Tony, who lived in her apartment complex, requesting a ride. He said a man named Paul would give her $20 to transport a woman to the hospital from Penacook. The woman did know precisely where in Penacook she went but checked the map on her phone and determined the area where she picked up the woman in Penacook or Boscawen. She said she thought Paul may have had a restraining order against him with the woman, which was why she was asked to drive the victim to the hospital, an affidavit said.

Dispatch, however, said the victim had no active protection orders.

The officer contacted Merrimack County dispatch, requesting any information about the victim and anyone in Boscawen, which led to Noble Scott Hunt, 34, with a last known address of Pollard Road in Goffstown.

A check of the National Crime Information Center found Noble had two active warrants out of Oxford County, Maine, for failure to appear-trafficking scheduled drugs from November 2022, and failure to appear on an aggravated trafficking of scheduled drugs, criminal forfeiture of property, and violation conditions of release charges from July 2022, issued by the Sanford ME Police Department.

Police learned later the woman was picked up at the Rosemary’s Way apartment complex in Penacook.

Arrested at the hospital was David Melanson, 29, on two bench warrants.

Nurse Familiar With Brutalized Victim

About 12 hours later, two detectives met a domestic violence nurse at Concord Hospital to discuss the case.

The nurse said she was “familiar” with the victim due to the sexual assault kit requested a few weeks before. The nurse said the victim said she was being trafficked and had escaped from being held hostage in an apartment before coming to the hospital. She said the victim was afraid of a man in the waiting room but was texting him. She claimed he was abusive, an affidavit said.

The nurse said the victim did not have any clothes — having been brought to the hospital in a stained fitted bedsheet. She had handprints on her upper thighs, abrasions on her arms and hands, bruising on her face, hips, and hand, a rash on her anus, and track marks all over her body, the report said.

The victim was also Narcaned twice, but it had no effect, and tested positive for COVID-19.

“(The victim) was unable to provide a statement at the time due to her condition,” a detective wrote.

Reinterviewing The Driver

The detectives reinterviewed the woman who dropped the victim off at the hospital in an apartment on Court Street later that evening.

The woman reiterated she did not know the victim and had only picked her up because Tony asked her to. The woman said when she arrived at Rosemary’s Way, Tony got out of the car, went into an apartment, and carried the victim to the car, wrapped in a blanket.

“(The victim) was unable to get to the car on her own,” she said.

Another man, who the woman did not know, came out of the apartment. She described him to the detective and the descriptors matched Hunt, an affidavit said. Hunt, the woman said, told her the victim was on drugs and needed to be taken to the hospital, the report said.

The woman then agreed to show detectives which apartment she went to at Rosemary’s Way. She said it was Building 4 but did not know which apartment.

Later, the detectives learned the apartment she went to was being rented by Matthew James Hansen, 36, of Penacook.

Melanson, who was arrested earlier that morning, was with the woman during the interview with police, according to an affidavit.

Two days later, police would accuse him of being involved in an assault and criminal threatening case downtown. A Concord Regional Crimeline alert on two simple assault charges, two felony criminal threatening with a deadly weapon charges, and a felony count of criminal threatening.

It is unknown if the cases are related.

Interviewing The Victim

On March 14, the detectives returned to Concord Hospital to speak to the trafficking victim.

The report said the woman, who was in the ICU, said she did not remember what happened to her and did not know who she was with before being hospitalized.

“(The victim) said Noble Hunt was not involved because he would not have left her in the condition she was in prior to being brought to the hospital,” the detective wrote.

The victim said she was only in the hospital due to being infected with COVID-19. When asked about the extensive bruising on her body, she said she was an addict and “addicts fall,” the detective wrote.

The interview then ended.

According to posts on Patch, the victim, who is originally from the Lakes Region, has been arrested close to a dozen times in the last few years, including drug possession, criminal mischief, assault, domestic violence, stalking, nonappearance in court, and breach of bail charges, as well as warrants. She has two active felony acts prohibited cases working their way through Merrimack County Superior Court and an active drug case in Oxford County, Maine.

Searching Hunt’s Facebook Account

Detectives were granted a search warrant of Hunt’s Facebook account on March 17.

Four days later, they received records from his account and confirmed the victim was at Hansen’s apartment, a report said. It also “appeared that Noble,” told her to “lie to police” regarding where she was before being hospitalized — telling her to say she was at a neighbor’s apartment, and his whereabouts — saying she should tell police he was in rehab, an affidavit said.

Detectives also accused Hunt of communicating with sources about drug buys.

In one, a contact told Noble they could line up 300 grams of “pure feta,” believed to be fentanyl, for $12,000, that he could sell. The same source also said they could line up a pound of ice, believed to be meth.

Inside his Facebook media files, the detective said there appeared to be a video from March 12 that “zoomed in on what appeared to be a large quantity of fentanyl.”

Hunt and Hansen were also accused of communicating on Facebook with the detective saying, “it appeared that Noble had recently sold drugs to Matthew Hansen.”

Another communication was between Noble and a man in his 40s about a black Volkswagen Jetta from March 14 and money given to Hansen.

A check on the vehicle found it was stopped on Feb. 1 by police.

Overdose On Alice Drive

Around 7 p.m. on March 22, police were called to 40 Alice Drive for a report of a man overdosing inside a Volkswagen Jetta.

A report said the vehicle was owned by the same person who had been instant messaging with Hunt on Facebook.

The officers found a man slumped over in the car’s driver’s seat, but he appeared to wake up as they approached, the report said. The car’s engine, the report said, was still running, and the officer saw “a pipe sticking out from between the man’s legs.”

The man gave a license with the name “Ryan Garrison,” the report said. After the officer asked the man to leave the vehicle, he was accused of grabbing the pipe and “a large bag containing a cloudy, white, rocky substance,” shifting them under his leg and placing them into a compartment in the door.

The detective wrote that the man was given a field sobriety test, but there was not probable cause enough to arrest him. When asked if the substance being moved around was drugs, the driver denied it, the report said.

An officer contacted a detective working on the trafficking victim-Hunt case and believed there might be a connection. The detective requested officers confirm the driver's identification and sent a photo of Hunt to the officer, the affidavit stated. The photo, the report said, gave officers at the scene “pause to the male’s true identity.”

Detectives drove to Alice Drive, confirmed the driver of the Volkswagen to be Hunt, and arrested him on the warrants from Maine. One of the detectives saw “in plain view,” on the driver’s side door, “a large amount of sticks-fingers of the controlled drug, heroin-fentanyl,” the affidavit said.

A tow truck was then called to impound the car.

Searching Rosemary’s Way Apartment

A brigade of police executed a search warrant at Hansen’s apartment around 8:30 p.m. on March 22.

Residents told Patch there were more than a dozen vehicles at the complex at the time of the search.

Hansen, an affidavit said, was handcuffed while police searched the apartment. During a pat down, he was accused of possessing a container with a white, chunky powdery substance believed to be crack. In his front pocket, police found a pipe, the report said.

Nicholas Janas, 37, of Goffstown, who was inside the apartment at the time of the search, was also arrested on a drug charge.

Police seized 94 grams of heroin-fentanyl, 40 grams of meth, and about 16 grams of crack, the affidavit said. Police also found pills, two other containers of fentanyl, uncapped needles, and a crack pipe.

At the time of the search, a child and a woman in her early 30s were in the apartment.

Hansen was arrested and charged with possession of heroin-fentanyl, possession of meth, possession of controlled drugs with intent to distribute, prohibited conduct, and two possession of crack cocaine charges, all felonies, and endangering the welfare of a child or incompetent.

The detective noted while Hansen was in a holding cell next to Janas, they began speaking, with Hansen being overheard telling Janas he was being booked for “possession,” and it was not much, the report said.

“I then overheard Matthew tell Nicholas, ‘Like, less than a gram,’” the detective wrote.

During an interview with police, Hansen was accused of admitting he had been smoking crack for around 200 days straight and recently began snorting heroin-fentanyl. He also confirmed lining up the ride for the woman from his apartment to the hospital.

“Matthew confirmed that he knew Noble,” the report said. “Matthew said he allowed Noble and (the victim) to stay at his apartment in exchange for drugs. Matthew said Noble had cooked crack at his apartment in the past.”

Hansen told police Noble made “confetti” — a mix of crack and heroin-fentanyl, an affidavit said.

Searching The Volkswagen

After securing a warrant for the Jetta, it was searched on March 24.

The affidavit said more than 983 grams of fentanyl, around 210 grams of cocaine, 175 grams of crack cocaine, and about 110 grams of meth were found in the car. Also found was $17,140 in cash and drug ledgers. Police said three cellphones, lactose powder, potassium nitrate, organic sulfur, glass jars with suspected mushrooms, a bag of gabapentin pills, a supposed pill press, ammunition, and a vacuum sealer.

An affidavit for Noble’s arrest was issued for four felony counts of possession of a controlled drug with intent to distribute on March 27. He was arrested two days later.

According to the report, Noble was convicted on an acts prohibited charge in Hillsborough County Superior Court North in August 2012.

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