Deadly Women: Dianna Saunders hired her ex-husband, Roy Saunders, to arrange to have her boyfriend, David King, murdered for the insurance money

From Dianna Saunders appeal:

On August 29, 2008, a woman who identified herself as “Dianna” called Dover Emergency Dispatch and reported an unconscious male, not breathing, in the basement of 81 Old Dover Point Road in Dover. Dispatched paramedics found the defendant’s boyfriend, David King, dead in the home that he and the defendant shared. King had died of a gunshot to the head. He also had shallow cuts on his body and a deep cut on his neck.

Dale McLaskey, whose backyard abutted the defendant’s and King’s property, saw King working in his yard on the afternoon of August 29. Around 5:30 p.m. King borrowed McLaskey’s garden hose and then went back to his house. That evening, between 5:30 and 7:30 p.m., McLaskey saw two men walking through King’s yard and into the woods. He recognized the men as Scott Mazzone and Derek Saunders (Derek), the son of the defendant’s ex-husband, Roy Saunders (Roy).

Another neighbor saw an unfamiliar green Jeep Grand Cherokee with Massachusetts license plates parked off Old Dover Point Road on August 28 and heading down Old Dover Point Road around 6:30 p.m. on August 29. A third neighbor reported seeing a green Jeep Cherokee parked off Old Dover Point Road around 6:30 p.m. on August 29. Police later determined that Mazzone owned a green Jeep Grand Cherokee with Massachusetts plates.

On August 31, Sergeant William Breault of the Dover Police Department interviewed Derek. Derek implicated his father as well as Mazzone and the defendant in a conspiracy to murder King. He subsequently pleaded guilty to being an accomplice to second-degree murder and agreed to testify at the defendant’s trial. He testified to the following.

Around January 2008, Roy told Derek that the defendant had given him $8,000 to have King killed because King was abusive. Derek then spoke with his friend, Mazzone, who owned three guns. Derek also spoke with the defendant, who told him that she needed his help and wanted King gone because they were having problems. The defendant reminded Derek that Roy still had the money.

At that time, the defendant and King were planning to move to Texas. Neither Derek nor Roy wanted her to move. The defendant told Derek that, if the plan to kill King went through, she would go to Texas for only a few months and then return to New Hampshire. According to Derek, he and the defendant discussed the plan no more than six times. At some point, Roy returned the money to the defendant, and told Derek that he and the defendant “didn’t think it was going to be done.” Discussions about the plan continued, however. Eventually, Roy received the money back from the defendant. About a month before putting the plan into action, Derek and Mazzone decided that, using one of Mazzone’s guns, they would shoot King in the basement of his house so as to muffle the sound of the gunshot.

Rose England, the mother of King’s three children, testified that around the same time, in late July or early August 2008, King told her that the defendant had talked a doctor into taking out a home equity loan, and that she was using the money for living expenses and to pay her mortgage in Dover as well as to buy a house in Texas. King told England that he was going to report the defendant to “the authorities.”

A doctor named William Meredith testified that in the summer of 2006, the defendant helped him sell his property in Concord. Around the same time, Meredith took out a reverse mortgage on a house he owned in Cape Neddick, Maine. After his wife died in the summer of 2006, Meredith started seeing the defendant and King socially, and King did maintenance work on the Cape Neddick property. Eventually, the defendant asked Meredith to increase the reverse mortgage and lend her the money. She told Meredith that she needed the money to renovate a property in Dover for which she had a ready buyer. The buyer would reimburse her for the renovations—and she would reimburse Meredith—when the property sold in August 2008.

The bank increased Meredith’s reverse mortgage and, in October 2007, wired over $440,000 into a joint checking account on which Meredith and the defendant were the only named signatories. Two or three months later, Meredith attempted to withdraw money and discovered that the funds had been withdrawn six or seven weeks after they had been deposited. Meredith went to the police on August 19, 2008, and explained that he had authorized the defendant to use only $220,000 of the funds in the account.

Nine days later, on the evening of August 28, Derek and Mazzone met with the defendant to make sure that she still wanted to have King killed. Derek and Mazzone drove to her house in Mazzone’s green Jeep Cherokee. The defendant confirmed that she still wanted King killed and suggested five o’clock the next day, when she would absent herself from the house. The defendant told Derek that she would call Roy and let him know the time, and that Roy would call Derek and tell him when to come to the house.

On August 29, 2008, Derek spoke with Roy, who confirmed that King was alone in the house and that “everything was all set to go.” On the way to the defendant’s and King’s house, Derek called the defendant to make sure that she was out of the house and that “everything was still a go.” The defendant said that she and a friend were renting a movie and shopping for food.

When they arrived in Dover, Derek and Mazzone parked off Old Dover Point Road and entered the house through an open rear sliding door. They went downstairs to the basement. Mazzone shot King and then stabbed him in the neck. Derek and Mazzone left the house and headed to the woods. On the way, Derek noticed a neighbor sitting in a lawn chair. After returning to the Jeep, Derek called the defendant and told her not to return home until he and Mazzone left New Hampshire.

The defendant called 911 around 7:12 p.m. Paramedics were the first to arrive, followed by Dover Police Officer Daniel Gebers. Inside the basement, he found the defendant, with whom he was acquainted. The defendant told Gebers that she had gone to the store, come home, and found King in the basement. Gebers escorted her to his police cruiser. She sat in the front passenger seat and was not handcuffed.

Shortly thereafter, Dover Police Detective Janine Harrington arrived. Detective Harrington explained the investigation process to the defendant and asked for her permission to search the home and vehicles. The defendant agreed verbally and in writing. Dover police also obtained and executed a warrant to search the defendant’s home.

In September 2008, the defendant moved to Texas, where she lived until she was arrested in July 2009.

Third suspect in Dover murder case commits suicide
New Hampshire: Trial Begins For Dianna Saunders Accused Of Arranging Murder
$10,000 and bloody shoe prints at scene of NH killing
Derek Saunders testifies he killed to save his sisters
Dover murder plot revealed
Dover woman convicted of boyfriend’s murder
Guilty on all counts: Dianna Saunders to spend the rest of her life in prison
David King’s sister calls Saunders ‘despicable’
Children of murdered Dover man sue Dianna Saunders
State of New Hampshire v Dianna Saunders 2012 (conviction and sentence affirmed)
N.H. Supreme Court upholds conviction in Dover death
Police capt. featured on TV show recounting Dover murder

Movie/Documentaries
A Killer in the Shadows
Redrum: Very Bad Investments

Defendants
Dianna Saunders – convicted, sentenced to LWOP
Roy Saunders – committed suicide
Derek Saunders – pled guilty, sentenced to 22 years to life in prison
Scott Mazzone – pled guilty, sentenced to 33 years to life in prison

INMATE INFORMATION

DIANNA LA FAYE SAUNDERS
AGE; 47
INMATE ID: 88198
TERM ID: 59300
BOOKED DATE: 03/07/2011
MAXED: 6/27/2138
FACILITY: NH STATE PRISON FOR WOMEN
CASEID: 123599
OFFENSE DATE; 8/28/2008
MINIMUM: 7/5/2108
MAXIMUM: 7/5/2108
DOCKET; 219-2009-CR-00784
COURT: STRAFFORD SUPERIOR COURT

INMATE INFORMATION

DEREK ROY SAUNDERS
AGE: 31
INMATE ID: 88740
TERM ID: 59958
BOOKED DATE: 05/16/2011
MAXED: 8/6/2107
FACILITY: NH STATE PRISON FOR MEN
CASEID: 125256
OFFENSE DATE; 8/28/2008
MINIMUM: 8/24/2028
MAXIMUM: 8/24/2028
DOCKET: 219-2009-CR-01386
COURT: STRAFFORD SUPERIOR COURT

INMATE INFORMATION

SCOTT DOUGLAS MAZZONE
AGE: 46
INMATE ID: 88729
TERM ID: 59956
BOOKED DATE: 05/16/2011
MAXED: 8/7/2107
FACILITY: NH STATE PRISON FOR MEN
CASEID: 125248
OFFENSE DATE: 8/28/2008
MINIMUM: 8/22/2041
MAXIMUM: 8/7/2107
DOCKET: 219-2009-CR-01595
COURT: STRAFFORD SUPERIOR COURT