Neal Richard Bolster, 29, a White male from Hinsdale, New Hampshire, was discovered dead inside his home at 240 Plain Road on the afternoon of April 11, 2019, after officers conducted a welfare check. Investigators also found 19-year-old Aaliyah Jacobs in the residence. Autopsies determined that both victims died from gunshot wounds, sharpening what began as a welfare call into a double-homicide investigation that drew state authorities to the quiet Cheshire County town.
By the next day, New Hampshire officials secured arrest warrants for Derrick Shippee, 28, charging him with two counts of second-degree murder in the shooting deaths of Bolster and Jacobs. As police moved to arrest him, Shippee was located that same afternoon in Vermont, where he was found deceased. Initial announcements focused on the urgency of the manhunt and the stark violence uncovered at the Plain Road home, while local and regional outlets reported the quick turn from discovery to warrant to the suspect's death across the Connecticut River.
The case's final shape emerged two years later. On March 19, 2021, the state unsealed the April 12, 2019 arrest-warrant affidavit, confirming that Shippee had been formally charged in the killings and that Vermont authorities had ruled his death an accidental drug overdose. With that disclosure, New Hampshire officials announced the investigation was closed and that no additional charges would be sought. The unsealed affidavit stands as the clearest public accounting of how the inquiry concluded: with a named suspect, no arrests carried through because the suspect died, and the state's homicide investigation brought to a formal close.
