The owner of the New Hampshire country club where a deranged gunman allegedly opened fire at a wedding Saturday, killing one and wounding two others, slammed the shooter as a “coward” following a brief court hearing.
Hunter Nadeau, who reportedly shouted “Free Palestine” before opening fire at Sky Meadow Country Club in Nashua, appeared briefly by video in a courtroom Monday where a judge asked him a few questions and set a probable cause hearing for Oct. 21.
He is charged with murdering Robert DeCesare, 59, who his wife said died trying to protect her and their daughter.
Club owner and longtime Nashua resident Rob Parsons said outside court after that he and everyone in the community are “heartbroken” over the weekend’s attack.
“This is the heinous act of a coward who will be held accountable for what he did,” Parsons said. “We will not let the cowardly acts of this perpetrator define us nor this community.”
Parsons said he’d spoken with DeCesare’s wife of 27 years, Charlene DeCesare. The couple are longtime members of the club, and she said she wouldn’t move from her and her husband’s home at Sky Meadow despite the tragedy.
“She wanted me to first say, ‘Everyone needs to know I am not leaving Sky Meadow and I’m not leaving this community. This is my solace, this is my home … and I’m staying,’” Parsons recounted the wife saying.
Parsons continued reading Charlene’s statement: “As devastated and traumatized as we are feeling right now, I know this has to be incredibly hard for everyone at Sky but what we need to take from this is just what an incredible community we have here.”
