EPPING — The Attorney General’s Office has no plans to investigate the Epping Police Department or bring criminal charges against officers in response to a petition by the mother of one of Sheila LaBarre’s murder victims, who claims police failed to protect her son.

Associate Attorney General Jane Young, who prosecuted the LaBarre case, said Carolynn Lodge’s claims that Epping police should be held accountable for the death of her son, Kenneth Countie, is a “civil matter that’s not within our purview.”

“The person responsible for the death of Kenneth Countie was charged and found guilty by a jury of her peers,” Young said Thursday. “This went through a seven-week trial. This investigation went on for a significant amount of time.”

Lodge hand-delivered a petition to the Attorney General’s Office last week. The petition asks that the Epping department be held accountable for what she claims was “gross negligence” on the part of officers who encountered LaBarre with her son in the days before he was killed.

LaBarre is serving two life sentences for the murders of Countie, 24, and Michael Deloge, 38, at her Epping farm.

The petition comes three years after Lodge brought a wrongful death suit against Epping police in which she argued they shared responsibility for the death because they knew she was dangerous and had abused him, but didn’t stop her.

Lawyers for the police insisted that the officers couldn’t have known that LaBarre would murder Countie and that they couldn’t be held responsible for his death.

The civil suit was eventually thrown out.

Lodge’s new petition and the civil suit pointed to an incident at an Epping Walmart involving LaBarre on March 17, 2006 — a few days before Countie died.

Police were called to the store after a manager complained about LaBarre’s belligerent behavior. LaBarre, who was pushing a sickly Countie in a wheelchair, became unruly.

Detective Rich Cote and Sgt. Sean Gallagher responded and found that Countie had several visible cuts, burns and bruises on his body.

Lodge has accused police of failing to help her son when they saw what appeared to be signs of abuse.

In her petition, Lodge claims that “when the opportunity arose to rescue my son from Sheila at the Epping Walmart, Cote and Gallagher chose to turn and walk away.”

But during proceedings in the civil suit, the police department argued that, for several reasons, taking Countie into protective custody at that time could have violated his constitutional rights.

Police Chief Michael Wallace said he wouldn’t discuss the accusations outlined in the petition.

“Obviously, the actions that the officers did take throughout our contact with Carolynn Lodge and Sheila are not mentioned in that petition,” he said.

Lodge said she feels she did everything she could do for her son under the law.

“I have no guilt whatsoever. The only guilt that I do have is that I did everything within the law. Maybe if I branched out on my own, Kenny would still be here,” she said.

jschreiber@newtote.com