BRENTWOOD – Defense attorneys pressed an Epping police officer yesterday to admit his department did not intervene in the relationship between Kenneth Countie and Sheila LaBarre, despite LaBarre's lengthy history of domestic violence.

LaBarre, 49, has admitted to murdering Countie and another boyfriend, Michael Deloge, but is pleading insanity.

Yesterday, Epping police Lt. Michael Wallace said he was well aware of statewide suggested protocols dictating how to intervene in domestic violence situations, but said his department did not do so on several occasions, including an encounter between Epping police and LaBarre and a sickly looking Countie, just days before he died.

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Prosecutors objected before Wallace could answer why his department did not intervene between Countie and LaBarre.

However, Wallace described an earlier incident in which he and another Epping police officer went to LaBarre's remote horse farm to do a well-being check on another boyfriend, James Brackett. LaBarre initially refused to come to the door, then shouted at them from an upstairs window, resisting their requests to show them that Brackett was alive and well. Eventually, LaBarre "reached down and lifted him up to the window by his hair," Wallace said.

Asked why he and the other officer, Epping Police Sgt. Sean Gallagher, did not intervene at that point, Wallace said this did not seem to be unusual behavior for LaBarre.

"Both Sgt. Gallagher and I viewed that as common behavior from Ms. LaBarre," he said on the stand. "Mr. Brackett never protested, never indicated he wasn't okay."

Defense attorneys also questioned a number of other police officers from around the region about various odd contacts they had with LaBarre.

A Somersworth police officer testified about being called to a rental property Lebarre owned in that town in March 2006 -- just days before Countie disappeared -- and found the floors torn up, the apartment in disarray and the words, "Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord," scrawled on the wall.

A Hampton police officer described a 1998 incident when LaBarre was arrested for domestic assault on Brackett, and became disruptive in court as she was being arraigned, insisting that she was bleeding from the vagina and no one would help her.

Upon cross-examination, the officer said LaBarre refused medical treatment as soon as she was out of the courtroom.

Coherent, specific

All of the officers who testified said LaBarre was coherent and focused on specific complaints when they dealt with her. A psychiatrist who testified for the defense last week said he believes LaBarre is suffering from paranoid delusions that make her think all men are pedophiles and that she is an avenging angel sent to protect society or children.

The various police officers who testified yesterday said LaBarre never expressed that sentiment to them throughout the years they knew her.

New Hampshire State Police detective Jill Rockey, who interrogated LaBarre for several hours after police first discovered a human bone burning on her front lawn, also testified that LaBarre struck her as manipulative and controlling. In a tape of the interrogation, LaBarre frequently goes off subject, and Rockey sometimes struggled to keep her on topic. Rockey testified she believes the ramblings were intentional.

"She would definitely try to lead us away when we asked a direct question," Rockey recalled. "Depending on the question, if she wanted to answer it, she would. And if she didn't, she would just try and lead us away."

Rockey said she thought it was odd how LaBarre gave detailed accounts of old conversations, recited court dates from a tax dispute from several years earlier, but yet struggled to recall the last conversation she had with Countie -- which would've taken place just days before the interrogation. During the interview, Rockey had LaBarre sign a consent form allowing police to search her property, but LaBarre altered the document, crossing out sections that said she gave police the right to use anything they found against her in a criminal court.

"I thought it was brilliant; I've never seen anyone do that," Rockey said.

However, Rockey conceded on questioning, the move was not "brilliant" enough to work, as all of the evidence collected during the search became the foundation for the case against LaBarre.

Wal-Mart visits

Several employees of the Epping Wal-Mart also testified about two incidents in March 2006, just days before Countie disappeared, in which they saw him accompanied by LaBarre at the store.

During the first incident, LaBarre became angry when she said a woman assaulted Countie, and then pulled up his shirt, displaying fresh wounds that an assistant manager at the store said "looked like he had been in a motorcycle accident."

LaBarre threatened a lawsuit and was asked to leave.

On a second visit, Countie's skin appeared green and he was slumped in a wheelchair. LaBarre piled yellow diesel gas cans into his lap as she pushed him around. During this incident, LaBarre told the store manager that she was a multi-millionaire attorney, who could shop at Nieman-Marcus, but chose to shop at the Epping Wal-Mart because "if the clothing line is good enough for Sam Walton, it's good enough for me."

During this second incident, two Epping police officers briefly spoke with LaBarre, and tried talking to Countie but were stopped by LaBarre. The two officers testified earlier in the trial that no further effort to separate the two was made. Countie's name was never actually mentioned in the original incident report.

The trial is expected to run longer than originally planned, with the defense continuing their case until at least Tuesday or Wednesday next week. Then prosecutors will begin their case.

Unlike normal criminal cases, in which the state must prove a defendant is guilty, the burden is on the defense to prove LaBarre is insane, and the presumption is that she is sane. If the jury finds that she is insane, she will likely be sent to the secure psychiatric unit at the state prison. Every five years she would have the opportunity to convince a judge that she is no longer dangerous. If the jury finds she was sane at the time of the murders, she will be sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole.