By ROSEMARY FORD

Granite State News Collaborative

Nearly two months before she was shot in the head after leaving her job at a sail manufacturer in Salem, Massachusetts, a 33-year-old Hampton woman filed a restraining order against her ex-boyfriend, a Wilton man who police say shot her and then killed himself on Monday night.

The woman, who is still alive and in critical condition at a Boston hospital, has not been identified.

Salem Police have identified the man as 55-year-old Richard Lorman of Wilton.

According to court documents, on Sept. 21, the woman filed for the restraining order against Lorman, who she described as sexually violent and coercive. The judge granted the order temporarily and then dismissed it a month later because Lorman didn’t constitute “a credible present threat.”

In the statement of facts, the woman says Lorman threatened her with rape. She also details a series of threatening text messages from him, including, “I will make you pay.” She accused Lorman of threatening her in public. According to her, he said, “I will (expletive) you up” and “Everything you hold dear, I will (expletive) it up.”

In the statement, the woman details harassment from Lorman, directed at herself, her family, friends and employers.

The woman was staying with friends instead of the home she owned but had shared with Lorman before filing the order because “she did not want to stay in the home long while Richard was in anger and at large.”

The statement ends with, “Future consequences are unknown but (Lorman’s) behavior seems to be escalating. (The woman’s) family and therapist (are) very concerned that he will resort to violence in this revengeful mindset where he has lost control. Richard has previously attempted suicide by combining medications, resulting in a coma, so he has demonstrated an attitude of ‘nothing to lose’ with a disregard for consequences.”

According to the documents, the woman was granted a temporary restraining order by Judge Polly L. Hall on Sept. 21. The provisions included that Lorman had to refrain from contacting her or her family, going to her home or being within 300 feet of her. He also had to surrender all his firearms to the Hampton Police.

On Oct. 20, the order was dismissed by the same judge. A box was checked, indicating “The Plaintiff has NOT been abused as defined in RSA 173-B.”

According to the documents, to grant a final order of protection, the court must find both that the plaintiff, the woman, had been abused and the defendant, Lorman, constitutes a present, credible threat to the plaintiff’s safety.

“On the evidence presented, the court cannot find that the Defendant’s conduct constitutes a credible present threat to Plaintiff’s safety. As such, the Petition is dismissed.”

On Thursday, New Hampshire Supreme Court Chief Justice Gordon J. MacDonald called for an internal review of the court case by Circuit Court Judge Susan B. Carbon, a nationally recognized expert of domestic violence and a former director of the Office on Violence Against Women at the U.S. Department of Justice. 

“The Judicial Branch anticipates the internal review will be completed by next week and following submission of the findings to the Supreme Court, they will be made public,” MacDonald said in a statement. 

The New Hampshire Judicial Branch is also creating a task force to review domestic violence court cases in the system, according to the statement. More details will be released next week.

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