Driver gets 6-month sentence in crash that killed her fiance 

MANCHESTER, NH – A Derry woman, found guilty of negligent homicide in a 2023 high-speed crash at a busy Manchester intersection that took the life of her fiancé, was sentenced Monday to six months in prison.

Judge Amy Messer, presiding in Hillsborough County Superior Court Northern District, sentenced Ailadi Abreu, 37, to 2-to-4-years in the New Hampshire State Prison for Women with 18 months suspended.  She also suspended her license for five years.

A jury convicted her of negligent homicide in the death of Michael Shattuck, 32, of Hampton, but acquitted her of manslaughter and reckless conduct.

Immediately after the sentence was imposed, Abreu was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs to begin serving her sentence.

Seeing her in handcuffs provided no solace for Michelle Shattuck, Michael’s mother.

“There is no justice here,” she said.  “My child is gone because of her.”

She said her son was a recovering addict, who had been sober for 13 months, when he died in the March 23, 2023 crash at the intersection of Granite Street and the I-293 off-ramp.  He worked for a landscaping company but helped many others who were struggling with addiction.

She said she knows of addicts who were sentenced to four and 10 years in prison.   Yet, she said, Abreu received “six months for killing my son.  Where is my son now?  I wear him around my neck.”    She carries her son’s ashes in a gold locket.

The sentencing came after a 1 ½-hour highly emotional hearing during which Michelle Shattuck and other family members and friends spoke, encouraging the judge to give Abreu the maximum sentence allowed by law – 3 ½-to-7 years in prison.

“You are a cold-blooded killer,” Michelle Shattuck said looking at Abreu sitting at the defense table.  “You right out killed my son.”

She accused the 37-year-old Derry woman of deliberately crashing the car with the intention of killing Shattuck and herself. Family members contended that prior to Shattuck’s death, he learned Abreu, whose proposal of marriage he had accepted weeks earlier, had cheated on him.

The first time, they said, Shattuck downed a bottle of Tylenol in an attempted suicide and wound up in the Exeter Hospital.  Shattuck, they said, forgave her.  But later when he went away for a week, they say she cheated on him again and he had proof of it.

They believe Shattuck and Abreu argued in the car that day and that he called off the engagement.  Michelle Shattuck said she believes her son – who never wore a seatbelt – fastened it prior to the crash because he knew what was about to happen.

She and other family members believe Abreu deliberately crashed the car in a case of “if I can’t have you, no one can.”

Assistant Hillsborough County Attorney Francis Coffey asked the judge to sentence Abreu to a 1 ½ to 7-year sentence with a loss of license for seven years.

Defense attorney Alayna Trilling asked the judge to give Abreu a suspended sentence of 3 ½ to 7-years in prison, with a five-year loss of license. She said Abreu has no criminal record, is the mother of three and for a decade has worked with underserved youth.

According to court records and Trilling, Abreu was crushed in the crash and had to be cut out of the wreckage.  She suffered dozens of separate injuries including a dozen broken bones; had a lacerated kidney, requiring numerous pints of blood; underwent five surgeries, and had an 18-month recovery in learning how to walk again.  She was in the intensive care unit at the Elliot Hospital for three weeks and then spent another two weeks in a rehabilitation hospital.

Her injuries are long-lasting and she is in chronic pain.  Trilling said she has upcoming medical appointments to determine her next surgery.  She takes an iron pill for anemia but needs iron infusions for the next three weeks.

Abreu did not address the court but Trilling read a letter she wrote in which she apologized to Shattuck’s family.  In it, she wrote how every time she looks in the mirror or when she is walking – she suffered numerous broken bones in her feet – that it reminds her that it was her negligence that killed Michael.

“I am, from the bottom of my heart, truly sorry,” she wrote.

The crash took place at the height of rush hour traffic about 5 p.m. on March 23, 2023 at the intersection of the I-293 off-ramp and Granite Street.

Shattuck had picked up Abreu, 37, from her employment at Job Corps.   She took over the driver’s seat of the 2012 Acura she purchased three weeks earlier.

Prosecutors maintained as she drove down the highway, she became enraged while arguing with Shattuck over her infidelity.  The defense contended the car, which she had purchased from a “shady dealership” and had 140,000 miles on it,” had malfunctioned and that police failed to perform an “autopsy” on the wrecked vehicle to determine any defects.

Coffey said one witness testified the car “flew” down the off-ramp.  Investigators estimated the car was going 70 to 77 mph when it crashed head-on into another car, killing Michael and seriously injuring Abreu.

Coffey, in his opening statement, played a video of the crash, recorded from a dash cam of a vehicle parked at the nearby Dunkin’ Donuts.  The video recorded Abreu’s car speeding through the intersection and crashing head-on into a 2019 BMW operated by Barbara Louise Letvinchuck, then 64.

Once hit, Letvinchuck’s car spun counter-clockwise and struck a 2013 Chevrolet Suburban operated by Austynn Trombley, 27.  Three children were in Trombley’s vehicle.

Abreu was pinned in the wreckage.  Rescuers had to cut away the crushed parts of the vehicle to remove her from it.   She suffered serious injuries including broken bones in her feet, knee, hip and shoulder.

Prosecutors, in proving their case, relied heavily on video footage of the crash and the testimony of Shattuck’s sister, Mariah Shattuck, who said she spoke with Abreu at the hospital.   Abreu, Mariah Shattuck said, told her about the argument she and Michael had just before the collision.

The defense maintained investigators decided Abreu was guilty based on the video and without conducting a full examination of the car, including its brakes, the steering mechanism, lighting, throttle or other parts of the car.  They said what happened was a horrible, tragic accident but not a crime.