Grantham homicide followed reassuring call from victim
By SHAWNE K. WICKHAM
New Hampshire Sunday News
An hour later, police called Perriello's parents and asked them to come pick up her four children. "Is Natalie OK?" her father asked.
"And the cop just said no," said Steve Taylor, who lives in Meriden, across the street from Bob and Ann LaFlam. Their 42-year-old daughter, Natalie, was shot to death in her Grantham home Thursday night; their son-in-law, James W. Perriello, 41, has been charged with murder.
Natalie Perriello was a teacher at Lebanon High School, which opened Saturday for three hours so the school community could share its grief and memories. Counselors were on hand to help students and staff alike.
Taylor, a dairy farmer and former state agriculture commissioner, has known the LaFlams for decades. His sons grew up with Natalie and her three brothers, and Taylor has enjoyed watching her raise her own children.
Now her parents will be raising those children, ages 12, 10, 6 and 3, Taylor said. "There's no one else to do it," he said.
Officials say the four Perriello children were in the home when the shooting happened just before 10 p.m. Thursday.
Even as a child, Natalie Perriello "radiated happiness and a sunny disposition," Taylor said. She was "a natural" teacher, and her students "just thought the world of her," he said.
"She just had the whole package. She had a nice, lovely smile.... She was always friendly. She loved other people."
"She just didn't deserve this," he said.
Every weekday, Taylor said, Perriello dropped off her youngest, 3-year-old Max, across the street for her mother to babysit, and picked him up again every afternoon. And sometimes on weekends, she and her children would "walk over here and visit the calves."
Taylor said Natalie's brother told him that 3! -year-ol d Max was tucked beside his mother in bed when the shooting occurred. And he said it was James Perriello who called 911.
Asked whether he could confirm those details, Senior Assistant Attorney General Jeffery Strelzin on Saturday said he could not answer those questions "at this time."
Natalie's father told Taylor that something was going on between the couple on Thursday. The LaFlams "had concerns," Taylor said, so they called her around 9:30 p.m., and that's when she told them, "Things have calmed down."
Taylor said Perriello "lived a working mom's life: up early to make the kids' lunches, get them dressed for school, get them off to school, bring that little fella over here to her mother's, then truck up to Lebanon to be ready when school opened."
"And then come back in the afternoon, pick them up, take them home, homework, supper, wash, get people tucked in...."
Natalie Perriello always had "a tremendous work ethic," Taylor recalled. A graduate of Lebanon High School, she worked at a local convenience store while attending Plymouth State College.
And even after she got a teaching job in Canaan, he said, "to supplement her income, she would come in at 5 o'clock in the morning and open that store, get the coffee going, get the newspapers up on the racks, then leave at 7:30 for school."
In all the years he knew Natalie Perriello, Taylor doesn't remember ever seeing her husband until last Wednesday. That day, James Perriello was working on a crew putting in a foundation a few houses away; he texted a message to Ann LaFlam to bring little Max down to see the cement truck, Taylor said.
The next night, Natalie Perriello was dead and James Perriello was in custody. He was arraigned Friday on two counts of second-degree murder, for allegedly shooting his wife several times with a handgun.
Perriello is being held without bail at Sullivan County Jail in Claremont awaiting a May 8 probable cause hearing.
In a letter sent home! to pare nts on Friday, Nancy Parsons, Lebanon High School principal, wrote, "Our school community has been shaken by a tragic and unexpected loss of a beloved Lebanon High School teacher, Natalie Perriello."
Parsons advised parents to watch for signs that their children might need extra support, such as changes in eating habits, sleeping problems and stomach disorders.
Two of Perriello's children attend Grantham Village School, where Kurt Gergler, the school principal, sent parents a letter explaining how the tragedy was handled there on Friday.
When school opened, he wrote, teachers shared the news with students in this way: "Last night, Natalie Perriello passed away. We are very sad for her children Christopher, Anthony, Jillian and Max. We know that they are safe and with their grandmother. We know that you are safe."
Gergler said staff members "have no plans on sharing any more details with the children."
Counselors were made available to the students, and classes made cards for the family. The teachers told children that feeling sad, confused, angry or worried was normal. "The building is quieter and slower than usual," Gergler wrote.
Taylor was making maple-frosted cupcakes for the Perriello children Saturday. He recalled when his wife was dying a year ago, the LaFlams brought over supper every night. Taylor said he and "a whole bunch of other people" now will do whatever they can to help the LaFlams care for Natalie Perriello's children. "We owe it to them," he said.
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