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N.H. woman sentenced to life in prison for fatally stabbing brother-in-law at Boston hotel
Ren Rodgers, 28, was convicted of killing 21-year-old Christopher Kellar. She will be eligible for parole after 18 years.
A New Hampshire woman was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole Wednesday after she was convicted of fatally stabbing her brother-in-law in 2021.
Ren Rodgers, 28, of Hollis, will be eligible for parole after 18 years in prison. Her attorney was not immediately available for comment Wednesday.
Previously:
Rodgers was convicted of second-degree murder last month for stabbing 21-year-old Christopher Kellar to death in a Boston hotel room on Feb. 20, 2021. Rodgers, who was assigned male at birth and now identifies as female, was vacationing in Boston at the time, and she and her wife — Kellar’s sister — were sharing a room at the Hotel Indigo with Kellar and his girlfriend.
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Prosecutors said an alcohol-fueled argument broke out between Rodgers’s wife and Kellar, who stormed out of the room. When he later returned to grab a phone charger, the brother and sister allegedly began pushing each other. Rodgers intervened, stabbing Kellar in the back.
When asked why she had stabbed Kellar, Rodgers purportedly replied, “no one touches my wife” and “no one hurts my wife,” according to prosecutors. Kellar was rushed to Massachusetts General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
In court documents, Rodgers’s attorneys argued she was acting in self-defense, and that Kellar was “intoxicated, belligerent and aggressive” for at least two hours before the stabbing.
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“Ren distanced herself from the arguments until Christopher began physically attacking her wife,” the defense wrote in a November filing. “Only then did Ren intervene, first by telling Christopher to get off of her wife, then attempting to physically restrain him, and only stabbed him after that did not work.”
Rodgers was ordered committed to Souza Baranowski Correctional Center, court records show. Her lawyers had tried unsuccessfully to have her serve her sentence at MCI-Framingham, a medium-security facility for women.
“The tragedy here, along with one life lost and another severely altered by long incarceration, is that it was all so avoidable,” Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden said in a statement. “These were people who all knew each other. The decision by Ren Rodgers to address a family dispute with deadly violence is as inexplicable as it is sorrowful for all involved.”
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