Resolution and Closure of the 1972 Murder of Arlene Clevesy in Newton, New Hampshire

Concord, NH – Attorney General John M. Formella and Colonel Nathan Noyes of the New Hampshire State Police announce that a murder from June 1972 in Newton, New Hampshire has been solved. However, no arrest will be made and no prosecution commenced because the perpetrator died in 2019.

On June 4, 1972, the body of Arlene Clevesy (age 48) of Haverhill, Massachusetts was discovered in the area of Hume Brook in Newton, New Hampshire. An autopsy concluded that she suffocated due to trauma to her neck and drowning. Investigators soon learned that Ms. Clevesy had last been seen alive in the early morning hours of June 4, 1972, in the company of Albert Francis Moore, Jr. who, over the course of years, made a series of admissions to different individuals about his responsibility for Ms. Clevesy's death. Based upon the State's investigation, a grand jury indicted Mr. Moore for Second Degree Murder in the Rockingham Superior Court in April, 1977. The Attorney General's Office entered a nolle prossequi of the indictment on November 30, 1979. At that time, Mr. Moore was incarcerated on a life sentence for the August 1972 murder of Donald Rimer in Salem, Massachusetts.

The New Hampshire Cold Case Unit (CCU) re-opened this investigation in 2015. Investigators conducted interviews with relevant witnesses and confirmed their earlier statements which included descriptions of the crime scene, Ms. Clevesy and Mr. Moore's actions the night of her death, and Mr. Moore's admissions about that night. They also conducted multiple interviews with Mr. Moore in prison during which he denied responsibility for the murders of both Arlene Clevesy and Donald Rimer. In April of 2021, Detective James Soucy of the CCU confirmed that Albert Moore passed away on November 11, 2019, as a result of metastatic prostate cancer. Mr. Moore was 88 years old.

Based upon all of the evidence gathered during the investigation into this 1972 homicide, investigators are now convinced that Mr. Moore killed Ms. Clevesy on June 4, 1972, in Newton, New Hampshire. However, since Mr. Moore is deceased, he cannot be prosecuted for her murder. Therefore, this case will be closed as "solved," but without an arrest and prosecution.

• Report of Investigation
• Statement from the Clevesy Family