NEWPORT — A 29-year-old Newport man pleaded guilty to charges he helped to dump the body of a man suspected of dying of a drug overdose.

This is the fourth of five defendants to plead guilty in a gruesome case that involved criminal charges against three members of the same family — a woman and her two sons.

Christopher Ayotte pleaded guilty to conspiracy in falsifying evidence and conspiracy in abuse of a corpse in Sullivan County Superior County in Newport on Thursday. The plea leaves only one defendant — his mother, Laurel Ayotte — with charges pending.

Christopher Ayotte was sentenced to 12 months in Sullivan County House of Corrections in Unity on the abuse of corpse charge, a misdemeanor. He was sentenced to 3½ to seven years in New Hampshire State Prison in Concord on the falsifying physical evidence charge, all suspended for five years, according to state court documents.

Ayotte, his mother, younger brother and two other people were charged in March in connection with the death of a 40-year-old Newport man who is suspected to have died from a drug overdose earlier that month at the Ayottes’ residence on Paradise Road in Newport. The man had been reported missing by family members.

The occupants of the residence are alleged to have kept the man’s body under a sheet in the kitchen for up to three days before they rolled the body into a blanket and carried it to the woods, where the body was discovered by police “about 100 yards away” from the home.

The date of the victim’s death or how long his body had been left in the woods is not known, but court records put the date of the crime on March 5. The five suspects were arrested and charged on March 23.

Police had already documented drug activity at the Paradise Road residence — which they described as a “flop house” reeking of dog feces and garbage. Two weeks earlier, there had been another fatal overdose at the same address, according to court documents.

When police arrived at the Ayotte residence in March to inquire if any of the occupants knew the whereabouts of the missing man, those inside the house initially said the missing man had left the residence on his own and they didn’t know where he went.

Later, police received a tip that the missing man had overdosed and people at the house had “disposed of” the body, court documents say. Police reported detecting the odor of bleach and cleaning materials when they investigated further, leading them to believe an attempt to clean up incriminating evidence had been made.

Contact John Lippman at jlippman@vnews.com.