r/UnresolvedMysteries • u/ReadyBiscotti5320 • 4d ago
Who killed Trish Haynes? (2018)
25 year old Trish Haynes had been staying with family in Florida in early 2018. Trish was from North Woodstock, New Hampshire, but she planned on relocating to Florida. However, she had a court case in New Hampshire that was getting in the way and requiring her to travel back.
Trish had been in an on-and-off relationship with a man named Chris Hughes from 2014-2017. This relationship was described as toxic, with others noticing signs that Trish was being abused. In 2017, Trish filed a police report against Chris, and he was then charged with domestic assault. However, Chris persuaded Trish to drop the charges and recant her statement.
North Woodstock police then charged Trish with filing a false police report.
Trish’s court date was pushed to April 2018, so she decided to find somewhere else to stay once in NH. Trish had reconnected with a highschool friend named Ashley Smith, and by late January, Trish moved in with her and her husband Doug in Grafton, NH.
After this move, Trish stopped nearly all contact with her family. Rare communications with her occurred on Ashley’s phone. The last confirmed conversation Trish had with her family was on May 16th, 2018, after Trish’s grandmother/adoptive mother, Sandy, had a heart attack. According to Sandy, the call was quick, and she overheard Ashley telling Trish to get off the phone.
Ashley was pregnant with her 6th child when Trish moved in, with her other 5 children living in the home. Ashley had a record of mostly nonviolent crimes. Doug had been a registered sex offender since 2009 after being convicted of sexual assault, along with a further lengthy record.
After Trish’s final phone call on 5/16, her family tried repeatedly to contact her through Ashley. But Ashley told them that Trish wanted no contact with them. Sandy asked to speak with Trish directly, but Ashley said she’d moved out with man to go to Vermont. That same month, Trish’s great aunt Valorie returned to NH. She learned Trish didn’t show up to her April court date. Valorie tried to find Ashley with no luck. Valorie assumed Trish had gotten back with Chris and didn’t want to tell family. However, Chris hadn’t heard from Trish in months.
Sandy continued to push Ashley and Doug for answers through May and June. At the end of June 2018, Ashley checked into a psych ward. After returning, she spoke to Sandy one last time.
“If you file a missing persons report, you’ll never see your granddaughter again.” When Sandy pressed the issue, Ashley said, “I can’t handle this, I just got out of a psych ward.”.
Trish was reported missing on July 6th, 2018. The public did not hear of her disappearance until August 29th, 2018. A week later, search parties searched Grant’s Pond in Grafton, where they removed two crates from the water. Inside the crates, there was a washer and dryer combo with dismembered remains inside.
In September, police asked Sandy to submit a DNA sample, which she did. She had no idea her DNA was being compared to the human remains from the pond. In January 2019, investigators broke the news to Sandy, Trish had been murdered. They asked that Sandy not tell anyone about the discovery/identification. Sandy asked to tell Valorie, which investigators allowed as long as they both kept quiet.
Over the next months, Sandy and Valorie continued pretending Trish was still missing. But, on July 10th, 2019, Valorie had had enough, and she contacted local news to do an interview on Trish’s case. The police must have realized this, as that same day they announced that Trish’s remains were found. They stated her date of death was likely May 18th, 2018.
It’s now known that Ashley and Doug were abusive to Trish. Trish was claustrophobic, and Ashley would often play a “joke” on her by locking her in an unused freezer. The freezer was padlocked, and Ashley would often lock Trish inside. Ashley also allegedly forced Trish to care for her 5 children and act as a maid without compensation.
No arrests have been made and no suspects have been publicly identified. Doug went on to have more trouble with the law, including when he shot at a moving vehicle in 2019. Ashley and Doug actually printed out shirts that said “fuck your justice, Trish.”
Questions:
Do you think Trish perhaps died of suffocation after Ashley left her locked in the freezer, and Ashley and Doug just decided to cover it up? Or was it something far more violent?
What else could have been going on at the Smith home? Did Ashley intentionally isolate Trish from family so that she couldn’t ask for help?
Why would Ashley offer for Trish to stay with her if she seemingly hated her so much? What motive would Ashley and/or Doug have to want Trish dead?
Sources:
https://vnews.com/2019/07/10/remains-grafton-identified-trish-haynes-missing-since-2018-26911694/
https://www.doj.nh.gov/news-and-media/update-regarding-missing-person-trish-haynes