BRENTWOOD, N.H. (AP) | A judge has ordered Sheila LaBarre to return everything she inherited from the man she claimed was her husband, including the 115-acre horse farm where she's accused of murdering a former Massachusetts man who worked for her and burning his body.
Authorities charged her last week with first-degree murder in the death of Kenneth Countie, 24, who had moved from Wilmington, Mass., to the farm.
In an order made public Tuesday, Rockingham County Probate Judge John Maher removed LaBarre, 47, as administrator of the estate of Wilfred LaBarre, a chiropractor whom she said was her common-law husband. He died in 2000 at age 74. Maher appointed Exeter lawyer Charles Tucker to inventory the estate.
Wilfred LaBarre also left the defendant two rental homes in Somersworth and his office building in Hampton.
Maher's ruling nullifies ones he made earlier allowing LaBarre to quickly take control of his assets.
Maher said the two never married and state revenue officials opposed recognizing her as his common-law wife on grounds the two had not been romantically involved since the 1980s.
Court documents also link Sheila LaBarre to several boyfriends during the 1990s, including one whom she briefly married.
Wilfred LaBarre left nearly all of his possessions to her in a will written in 1988 and updated in 1990.
The chiropractor's daughter, Laura Melisi, said her father wrote the will to appease Sheila, whom she said completely controlled her father.
"He couldn't get her out of his life. She wouldn't leave," Melisi told the New Hampshire Union Leader. "She wanted everything, and he didn't know how to get rid of her because of her threats."
Melisi said LaBarre lived for years in an apartment above her father's office in Hampton. She and her husband welcomed Maher's order.
"It gives me some hope that possibly we can get some of the inheritance my father wanted us to have," she said.
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