CONCORD — Without debate, the state Executive Council rejected a bid by Robert McLaughlin, 83, for a hearing on his request for a pardon of his first-degree murder conviction for the 1988 slaying of Robert Cushing Sr. of Hampton.
State prosecutors said McLaughlin, an 18-year veteran of the Hampton Police Department, was acting on a grudge on June 1, 1988, when he came to Cushing’s front door and fatally shot him.
All of Cushing’s surviving children opposed the pardon bid, as did the Attorney General’s Office.
Cushing’s eldest son, former House Democratic Leader Renny Cushing, 69, died in 2022 after a battle with advanced stage prostate cancer.
Following the murder conviction, McLaughlin was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.
Renny Cushing went on to become a national leader in the campaign against capital punishment.
He sponsored legislation in 2019 that repealed the death penalty in New Hampshire.
Renny Cushing’s widow, Kristie Conrad, still lives in the Winnacunnet Road home in Hampton where the murder happened.
“As I continue to live in the home where my father-in-law was killed, I do not find comfort or safety in the thought that Mr. McLaughlin (or his second wife Susan) would be out of jail and be able to return to the scene of their crime,” she wrote.
Susan McLaughlin also was sentenced to life without parole for helping her husband carry out the murder.
She was accused of disguising herself while acting as a lookout for her husband and was convicted of tampering with witnesses and conspiring to commit murder.
The New Hampshire Executive Council has previously rejected pardon hearing requests from Susan McLaughlin.
McLaughlin said his falling out with Cushing played a role in his crime.
“One of my environmental stressors was a worsening relationship with my neighbor, Robert Cushing; that toxic relationship ended with his murder at my hands,” McLaughlin wrote.
One of the elder Cushing’s daughters, Marynia Cushing Page of Exeter, resented that statement.
“There was never a worsening relationship with my father because there was no relationship. The only interaction my father ever had with Robert McLaughlin was around 1975 when there was a fatality in front of our family home, the subsequent arrest of my father on a misdemeanor, later the arrest of our neighbor Gladys Ring and the publicity that followed,” she wrote.
Councilor: ‘Not a close call’
McLaughlin arrested both the elder Cushing and his neighbor, Gladys Ring, for disorderly conduct in separate incidents in 1975.
Robert and Renny Cushing worked to get McLaughlin and a second officer fired for heavy-handed police tactics.
McLaughlin remained on the job and was cleared of any wrongdoing.
According to a 2021 book, ”Murder At the Front Door,” McLaughlin had blamed the elder Cushing for his failure to advance in the department.
McLaughlin claimed that he had been going through a mental health crisis.
“I began to experience acute emotional trauma. The stress of my personal and professional life began to deteriorate my mental health … made worse by my alcohol use while taking the only treatment offered; large doses of Xanax and Halcion,” McLaughlin wrote in his pardon application.
“I sought both medical and professional intervention from my supervisors over an extended period of time.”
The jury rejected McLaughlin’s plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.
McLaughlin said he currently suffers from “advanced skin cancer” and sought the pardon so that he could return home to New Hampshire.
McLaughlin is currently housed in a prison in Lake City, Florida.
Executive Councilor Janet Stevens, R-Rye, represents the district where the murder occurred and worked with Rep. Renny Cushing on the investigation of cases of a cancer cluster on the Seacoast.
“The testimonies of the family members were really compelling to me. It’s awful what this family went through and Renny was an incredible advocate and dear person,” Stevens said.
“This was a man (McLaughlin) who put his police uniform on every day. He harbored a 14-year grudge and for what? He didn’t turn himself in or give himself up, end of story as far as I’m concerned.”
Councilor David Wheeler, R-Milford, is related to the family by marriage.
His brother, Donald Wheeler married Pam Conrad who is a sister of Candy Conrad, Renny Cushing’s widow.
“This wasn’t a close call at all,” said Wheeler.
“The Cushing family is supportive of the sentence of life without parole and that’s good enough for me.”
Assistant Attorney General Bethany Durand said the state bears a burden to see that justice remains done.
“The public’s interest in the administration of justice, particularly in cases involving murders by law enforcement officers, mandates that persons convicted of firstt-degree murder suffer the full consequences of their actions and choices,” Durand wrote.
“The petitioner’s guilty verdicts and sentences justly accomplish both and should not be disturbed.”
Giovanna Hurley of Portland, Maine, said she was adopted as an infant and only through DNA testing several years ago did she learn that Robert Cushing Sr. was her father.
She’s a retired developmental and school psychologist who said she worked with many young victims of domestic violence.
“My Cushing siblings have told me again and again how much I resemble our dad and how in some small way meeting me has helped to get a piece of our father back,” she summed up.
“I don’t know if my father would have still been alive when I found my family, but I would have wanted to meet him if I could.”
