A man is found dead in his home In the late summer of 2003, a sense of unease settled over a home on Nashua Street in Milford, New Hampshire. Inside, 50-year-old Paul Herlihy, a Caucasian male, had been the victim of a brutal act of violence. His body was discovered by police on August 27, 2003, after a concerned family member requested a welfare check. It was determined that he had been deceased for several days, succumbing to blunt force trauma.
For years, the case remained a painful open wound for his family and the community, a cold case with lingering questions and no definitive answers.
The initial investigation in 2003 quickly focused on Paul's teenage son, Douglas Herlihy. At the time of his father's death, Douglas was arrested in Massachusetts on unrelated charges while driving his father's car. Though considered a person of interest in the homicide, he was not charged in connection with the death for nearly two decades. The relationship between father and son was reportedly tumultuous, with records of numerous police calls to their previous residence. Paul had moved with his son to Milford from Massachusetts, reportedly to help him escape a troubled environment.
For years, the case lay dormant in the cold case files of the New Hampshire State Police. Then, in a significant breakthrough in June of 2025, investigators announced an arrest. Douglas Herlihy, then 39 years old, was taken into custody in Saugus, Massachusetts, and charged with the second-degree murder of his father. The arrest brought a renewed sense of hope for justice, though the specific details of what led investigators to finally charge him after so many years were not immediately released. Douglas is now awaiting legal proceedings that will hopefully bring closure to a case that has haunted a family for over two decades.
