As the Attorney General’s Office investigates a fatal shooting in Peterborough, New Hampshire’s self-defense law — and a similar case from 2019 that ended without charges — offer clues to how the case could unfold.
Authorities ruled the death of 24-year-old Jack Hutchings a homicide on Friday. An off-duty local police officer involved in the incident, Douglas MacPherson, received stab/incised wounds.
A spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office said the officer was in his yard with his young children when the shooting occurred. The attorney general’s office said a 911 call reported the event as an “altercation involving two adult neighbors.”
New Hampshire is one of many states that have adopted a “stand your ground” law, which governs the use of deadly force and removes any duty to retreat when threatened by another person, especially on your own property.
In one high-profile self-defense case, Colin Bouchard of Manchester shot and killed a home intruder in 2019. Investigators chose not to prosecute Bouchard, citing New Hampshire’s self-defense laws.
Bouchard was away from his home when he received a notification on his phone from his home security system with footage of a man rustling through his garage, according to a final investigation report issued by the attorney general’s office several months after the incident. Bouchard went home, retrieved a gun from inside the house, then approached the garage from the outside as Barry began to crawl out from under the door.
Bouchard told him to stop and, when he didn’t, shot him in the head.
In Bouchard’s case, the attorney general’s office reviewed three variations of the self-defense law, RSA 627:4. It permits a person to use deadly force against someone else if he “reasonably believes” they are about to use unlawful deadly force or “likely to use any unlawful force” while committing a burglary or committing a felony within the person’s home.
Because Bouchard had gotten the security notification and found a stranger with a headlamp and a face covering going through his garage after midnight, investigators agreed the evidence supported his self-defense claim.
“It was reasonable for Mr. Bouchard to believe that Mr. Barry had unlawfully entered a building, namely his garage, with the purpose to commit a crime therein,” the report stated.
The attorney general’s office also cited previous case law, which stated that a person’s self-defense claim should be considered under “the circumstances as they were presented to him at the time, and not necessarily as they appear upon detached reflection.”
Bouchard had called 911 after the shooting and expressed panic and remorse, sounding “very upset” and “alternating between crying and breathing heavily” on the phone. He told investigators he had feared for his safety.
“He was going through my stuff in my garage, and he came out and I told him to, I, I had my gun in my hands, and I, I panicked because I didn’t know what he had in his hands, then I noticed he had nothing,” Bouchard told the operator, according to the report. He told investigators he had tried to check Barry’s vital signs and ask whether he was alive.
Bouchard told investigators that Barry was pulling himself out of the garage with one hand, and he couldn’t see his other hand but thought it looked like he had something in his hand and could have had “malicious intent.”
Barry was unarmed aside from a pocket knife in his back pocket, the investigation found, but fearing for one’s safety is not a consideration when it comes to self-defense in a burglary. The person only has to reasonably believe the other person will use unlawful force while committing the felony on their property.
In Peterborough, the attorney general’s office has not officially named MacPherson in the investigation and said it will not do so until an interview takes place. That practice is consistent with how it treats victims of crimes and not suspects.
MacPherson, who joined the Peterborough Police Department in May 2025, was hospitalized briefly following the incident. He returned home accompanied by a procession of police last week.
