Some charges dropped in wild episode at airport

By JOHN LIPPMAN

Valley News Staff Writer

Published: 12-30-2022 9:05 PM

LEBANON — Prosecutors have significantly narrowed charges against two individuals who were originally accused of abducting a woman and stealing a backpack containing tens of thousands of dollars in cash in broad daylight at the Lebanon Municipal Airport last summer, suggesting that the some of the events as initially portrayed by authorities may not have held up in court.

In addition, kidnapping charges brought against a third individual involved in the incident were dismissed and a charge of robbery was dropped, according to New Hampshire court records.

Meanwhile, charges of selling a controlled substance against two individuals — April Arnold and Adam Adolph — are still pending. Arnold and Adolph were apprehended with 3,684 bags of fentanyl and 74 grams of xylazine, an animal sedative, according to authorities.

But the dropping and dismissal of the kidnapping and robbery charges against the trio of defendants recasts what had been portrayed as one of this year’s more colorful crimes — including the supposed kidnap victim’s legs dangling out of an open door from a speeding getaway car and the deployment of the a tactical police team three weeks later to extract two of the suspects from their hideout in West Lebanon.

Now the case has been reduced to drug offenses.

Even then, the details of the case remain far from routine: 3,684 bags of fentanyl and xylazine weighing 74 grams were found in a wall cavity in the apartment where the suspects were hiding, according to court records.

At the heart of convoluted case, however, is how a group of friends and acquaintances betrayed and double-crossed each other over drugs and money, engaging in dangerous behavior that at times could be seen as comical were it not for more tragic circumstances they were lucky to escape, court documents and an interview with the woman who was the victim of the supposed kidnapping show.

In July, Grafton County prosecutors charged Arnold, 37, of South Royalton, and Adolph, 33, of Thetford, with robbery and kidnapping stemming from an incident earlier that month in which the two — along with Kurtis Marcy, 37, of Thetford — allegedly conspired to rob a backpack containing $55,000 to $60,000 in cash from Tunbridge native Brooke Barnaby, 31, while at the Lebanon airport.

Article continues after...

Yesterday's Most Read Articles

According to the initial account from police, the trio sped off with Barnaby as a supposedly unwilling captive in their car.

But in an interview with the Valley News on Friday, Barnaby confirmed police accounts that the backpack of cash — allegedly the proceeds from drug sales — belonged to Arnold all along.

Barnaby said she and her fiance stole the cash the preceding evening and had gone to the Lebanon airport the next day to “get away to start a new life.”

They were hanging out at the airport after failing at an attempt to rent a car, she said, and Marcy, who accompanied them, was secretly conspiring with Arnold to retrieve her stolen money.

It was Marcy who grabbed the backpack from Barnaby and bolted out of the lobby and into a waiting car with Arnold and Adolph inside, according to police.

On Friday, Barnaby acknowledged she gave chase and willingly jumped into the waiting car after Marcy, with whom she wrestled for the backpack.

Barnaby said between the screaming and her legs dangling out the open door of the car, it could have appeared to witnesses as though she was being kidnapped.

Later when being transported to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center for treatment of a finger injury — during what Barnaby said was her only interview with police — she said she replied in the affirmative when police asked if she “felt like I was being held against my will.”

“On the way to the hospital, I had been up all the night and day before. It didn’t even occur to me this was an actual interview. I felt my words were kind of twisted to fit their narrative,” said Barnaby, who currently resides in Lebanon.

“I wouldn’t have made a great state’s witness,” she added.

The Grafton County Attorney’s office, which initially brought the kidnapping and robbery charges in Grafton Superior Court, did not respond this week to requests for comment.

Laura Wilson, attorney for April Arnold, declined comment while her client’s case on drug charges is pending.

An attorney for Adam Adolph did not immediately respond to a message for comment.

Jack Bell, attorney for Kurtis Marcy, said that the kidnapping charge against his client “didn’t survive a probable cause hearing” and was dismissed and the robbery charge was dropped by prosecutors 12 days later.

Barnaby, who said she struggles with drug addiction, acknowledged she was not in her right mind when she and two alleged accomplices stole the backpack of cash with a plan to use the money to move away from the area.

“Drugs make good people do bad things,” she said, “and bad people do even worse things.”

Contact John Lippman at jlippman@vnews.com.

]]>