N.H. AG’s Office vague on Manchester hotel shootout deaths details

New Hampshire authorities are inconclusive about what killed two people involved in a Manchester hotel shootout in March.

The New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office says Christian St. Cyr and Brandie Tarantino St. Cyr were killed by a combination of hypothermia, “blunt penetrating injuries” and “acute intoxication” from a combination of fentanyl, acetyl fentanyl, methamphetamine and cocaine, according to a Tuesday press release. The release says the cause of death for both is “undetermined.”

The couple were two of three people who died over the course of March 27-28 after authorities, including a SWAT team, swarmed the area around the Quality Inn in Manchester, closing off a bustling commercial neighborhood filled with car dealerships, a strip mall and several restaurants.

The third, Stephen Marshall, 51, of Manchester, was shot by police during the incident.

Authorities say the investigation into the circumstances of the three is “ongoing” and that a report on whether force was justified in the incident will be released when the investigation is complete.

The incident began when Marshall climbed out of a hotel window. Armed with an automatic handgun, Marshall “engaged” with a Manchester police officer and two Drug Enforcement Administration agents who had come there to serve a warrant on him and another man. They only would say it was drug-related.

A police officer and DEA agent shot Marshall, and he was pronounced dead at the hospital, according to the attorney general’s office. No law enforcement officers or bystanders were injured.

Meanwhile, the St. Cyr’s holed up in a first-floor room of the hotel. For nearly nine hours, one of the two fired multiple times on law enforcement who were outside.

SWAT team members eventually deployed chemical agents inside the room. At the same time, MacDonald said Manchester police officers “attempted to speak with these individuals and seek a peaceful resolution.”

The standoff ended after 15 hours on the morning of March 28 after law enforcement officers managed to get into the Quality Inn.

(Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.)