BRENTWOOD — A grand jury handed down murder charges against a Salem man accused of fatally stabbing his lover's boyfriend with a samurai sword.
Scott Hanks, 49, of 87 Lake Shore Road, is facing two counts of second-degree murder in the April 6 confrontation outside his home that ended the life of William Solberg Jr., 46, of Pelham. Since his arrest, Hanks was being held on charges of first-degree assault and negligent homicide.
Hanks also is facing a single count of falsifying physical evidence for allegedly tossing the 26-inch sword into Canobie Lake after slicing Solberg's hand during the fight, then stabbing him in the abdomen. State Fish & Game divers found the sword in the lake a day after the stabbing, just feet from Hanks' home.
The indictments were made public yesterday in Rockingham County Superior Court, days after a grand jury convened to weigh charges in the case.
Solberg died at Caritas Holy Family Hospital in Methuen, Mass., about 45 minutes after the fight. A Cambridge native, Solberg moved to New Hampshire about seven years ago and worked as a foreman at his family's construction firm, M. Solberg Enterprise Co. in Winchester, Mass.
The upgraded charges against Hanks means he will head to trial and face the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison if he is convicted by a jury.
The first-degree assault and negligent homicide charges could have resulted in prison terms as short as three and a half years and as long as 15 years.
Prosecutors said Solberg went to Hanks' home because he learned his live-in girlfriend, Patricia Walsh, was with Hanks.
Solberg was calling Walsh on her cell phone, sitting in his truck and beeping the horn, police said.
Prosecutors said Walsh told Hanks not to go outside, but he "saw red" when he learned Solberg was outside his door.
Hanks is accused of grabbing the sword and heading out the front door, first popping a rear tire on Solberg's Chevrolet truck so he could not leave the property.
Witnesses said Solberg had been at Hanks' home a day earlier, trying to get Walsh to come with him. Several neighbors saw the fight, but few said they could see the sword during the struggle.
The fight brought a fleet of police officers with guns drawn to the usually quiet neighborhood. Hanks was one of three men who rented rooms in the home, which sits on the lake shoreline.
Before his arrest, Hanks worked as the plant manager of an aerospace engineering company, Union Manufacturing. He was previously a part-time Merrimack police officer for five years. In 2004, he pleaded no contest to fighting with another man in a plaza in Pelham.
Hanks is being held at Rockingham County jail on $100,000 bail. He will be arraigned on the new charges at the end of the month.
