Manchester defendant in domestic assault case escaped murder prosecution of Virginia senior

Mar. 23—A man who escaped prosecution for the 2019 murder of an elderly Virginia woman is being tried locally for a domestic violence attack that took place three years later in Manchester.

In New Hampshire, Justin Jay Sales, 21, faces nearly 50 charges, including rape, assault, stalking and witness tampering. A Hillsborough County jury was expected to begin deliberations on the case Friday.

In Virginia, authorities charged sales Sales with first-degree murder after a 92-year-old woman was found shot in her bed in June 2019. The victim's 74-year-old daughter was shot and survived, according to media reports.

But prosecutors reluctantly freed Sales after several problems of the case emerged, including a cyberattack on the Amherst County Sheriff Department that froze access to bodycam footage that was part of the case, said W. Lyle Carver, the Amherst County Commonwealth Attorney involved in the case.

He stressed that his office can bring charges in the future.

"It was immediately returned to investigation," Carver said. "It is under investigation now."

According to Virginia media reports, Doris Puleio died of gunshot wound to her torso and arm, and Trudy Ann Goetz suffered "piercing" gunshot wounds to her torso and a graze wound to her chest but survived.

Authorities dropped charges against Sales in 2021, citing the cyberattack, the inability of a witness to testify because of long-term COVID and chain-of-custody problems with a piece of evidence.

The action ignited political fingerpointing in the county, which is located in central Virginia just north of the city of Lynchburg.

"You wake up and you get a call that your grandmother was murdered, and your aunt was shot several times and it's something that you see on TV, but you never expected to happen to yourself," Craig Puleio told WSET-TV, an ABC affiliate, in early February. "Everybody in the family is just beside themselves on what went on."

Carver said he's limited in what he can say because the investigation remains open.

He said the cyberattack was only one of the issues, and not the biggest. Both Virginia State Police and the FBI worked on the cyberattack, and the attack affected other cases, too.

In New Hampshire, trial started Monday for Sales in Hillsborough County Superior Court.

He is accused of striking, choking and raping his girlfriend after coming home from a night of drinking. The assault took place in mid-September 2022 in an apartment at 494 Wilson St., according to a police affidavit.

Police answering the call noted a bloody nose, facial swelling, broken blood vessels in the woman's eyes, scratches on her neck, bruises on her her arms, legs and shoulders and eight bite marks. His lawyers have said that the victim consented to the treatment.

Sales faces a slew of follow-up charges — witness tampering and stalking — after he allegedly tried to call his victim from jail and tried to convince her to drop the case. He could face years in a New Hampshire jail if convicted of all the charges.

But the Virginia prosecutor said he will bring the murder charges as soon as possible.

If investigators can make a solid case, Carver said he will move to prosecute Sales even if he is imprisoned in New Hampshire.

"We will try this case, no matter when," he said, "This is a very serious case."