Man accused of killing stepdaughter 5 years ago expected in court today
Five years after his 11-year-old stepdaughter was found dead in a river a half-mile from the family’s New Hampshire home, Wendell Noyes will be in court for the first time to face charges for her killing.
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Noyes, now 52, is charged with second-degree murder in the death of Celina Cass. Investigators say he submerged her in the waters of the Connecticut River, killing her. He is expected to appear in court in Berlin, New Hampshire at 3 p.m. Tuesday.
Luisa Noyes last saw her daughter on July 26, 2011, when the pair watched television before Celina got on the family computer. She was never seen alive again.
“Why. That word why runs through my mind and has for the last five years,” Luisa Noyes told WMUR Monday. ” Why would anyone want to go and take my baby girl away from me?”
Luisa and Wendell had been married about nine months and lived with Celina, her then-13-year-old sister, and a 22-year-old son of one of Luisa’s former boyfriends in Stewartstown, New Hampshire when Celina went missing.
Luisa Noyes, wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with her daughter’s face and the words “Justice for Celina,” told WMUR that investigators informed her Monday that they were going to arrest her former husband.
“I want him to rot so bad,” she told the television station.
Celina’s paternal grandmother, Marcia Laro, told the New Hampshire Union Leader that the family had hoped for an arrest for years.
“You never know for sure if you will hear news like that,” Laro, mother of Celina’s biological father, Adam Laro, told the newspaper. “Maybe this will finally be coming to an end soon.”
Noyes, who has a history of psychiatric issues, most recently had legal trouble in October, when he was charged with trespassing, resisting arrest and simple assault.
Investigators searched for Celina for days. She was found dead on August 1.
But while she was still missing, the Union Leader spoke briefly to Wendell Noyes, who said his stepdaughter rarely left the house. He told the reporter on the phone that he had a message for her: “Get your butt home.”
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