Domestic violence charges land convicted killer back in prison

First Name

Email address:

MANCHESTER, NH – A city man, who served a lengthy sentence for murdering his infant daughter in 2001, is back in prison this week after being arrested on assault and criminal threatening charges.

Christopher Denton, 50, of 509 Beech St., Apt. 2, waived arraignment Monday in Hillsborough County Superior Court Northern District. He is charged with felony criminal threatening – deadly weapon – and misdemeanor offenses of simple assault and two counts of resisting arrest/detention.

He initially was ordered held for three days, pending the filing of a probation violation. He also is to be placed in preventive detention, that is held without bail, on the newest charges.

Denton is accused of striking “UD,” his fiancée, in the head with a door and knocking her to the floor, on the night of July 23, 2023, in their Beech Street apartment. He also is accused of threatening to bash her head with a 15-pound dumbbell.

Police said they twice shot Denton with a non-lethal round when he first ignored their commands to come out of the house and, once outside, again ignored them and started to return to the house. Neither round had an effect on Denton and K9 Grimm was called in and, after the dog bit Denton in the leg, he complied.

In 2002, Denton was sentenced to 18 to 36 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder of his daughter, Avery, who was 5 months old in July 2001 when she died. If he was of good behavior, he would have been released after serving 18 years in 2019.

Jane Graham, the NH Department of Corrections’ Strategic Communications Administrator, Division of Personnel and Information, said Denton entered the state prison on Oct. 21, 2002, and was released on May 19, 2019, after serving 18 years. She confirmed his maximum sentence was 36 years with a maximum release date of July 6, 2037.

At the time of his daughter’s death, Denton was 28 years old and living in Enfield. Initially, he told police the baby was injured on July 14, 2001, when he was giving her a ride on a mountain bike and he accidentally fell on her.

Doctors and the state’s chief medical examiner determined the baby suffered a blunt impact head injury causing extensive bleeding and swelling of the brain which did not align with Denton’s story.

Informed of that, Denton admitted to investigators he fabricated the account. He then told police he drank six beers that day and accidentally dropped his infant daughter on the floor twice and then fell himself. Then he took the baby into his bedroom to play with her and held her upside down and swung her around by her ankles. Her head struck the metal bed frame. Then, according to the Union Leader article, he grabbed her face and shook her

The baby’s mother was not home at the time of the incident.