David S. Lent was supposed to be getting mental health treatment after an arrest last year, and was not supposed to have any guns.
But last week, Lent shot and killed his 12-year-old son in Hinsdale before turning the gun on himself.
Lent was arrested in December 2020 after police said he assaulted the woman he was living with amid what seemed to be a mental health crisis.
The woman called police to her Fitzwilliam home. After she answered the door, police said they watched Lent drag the woman by the neck back into the house, and heard her screams.
Fitzwilliam Police Officer Gene Cuomo said he saw Lent through a window, holding a candle and screaming nonsense.
When another officer arrived, the police broke into the house and used a Taser on Lent. Cuomo said Lent pulled the barbs out of his chest and yelled, “Shock me more!”
“He was constantly screaming, and not making any sense,” Cuomo wrote.
Lent barricaded himself in a bedroom with the woman and her 4-year-old child. Eventually, police overpowered Lent and arrested him. The child was not hurt.
When Lent went to court to face charges of domestic violence and false imprisonment — all misdemeanor-level charges — his public defender and the prosecutor agreed he needed mental health treatment, not prison.
“He was clearly in the middle of a mental health episode,” said Martha Jacques, the prosecutor who handled the case.
Jacques said he was not released on bail, because the court considered him too dangerous. But over several weeks, Jacques worked with Lent’s public defender to come up with a plan for the charges to be dismissed if Lent complied with a treatment program.
A judge signed off on the plan in April, and Lent was released from the Cheshire County House of Corrections.
If Lent could stay in treatment and out of trouble for four years, according to the agreement, the charges would be dismissed. He would be required to appear for court hearings every three or four months, she said, to make sure he was continuing with the treatment plan drawn up by Monadnock Family Services.
The first of those check-in-hearings was scheduled for this month, Jacques said.
But Lent would not make the hearing.
When he was visiting with his son, 12-year-old Tyler Gilbert, and the boy’s grandparents on Aug. 4, he shot the boy multiple times, killing him. Lent then shot himself once, and died.
Jacques said Lent should not have had access to firearms. The Attorney General’s Office has said the case is still under investigation.
Gilbert’s family in Vermont are mourning his loss.
“We lost a young man that didn’t even get to enjoy life or experience his dreams,” read a note on Facebook page raising money for Gilbert’s funeral. “He is going to be missed dearly by family and friends.”jgrove@unionleader.com
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