‘Jack the Snipper’ is arrested again

Published 3:45 pm Wednesday, May 20, 2015

SALEM, N.H. — A man who gained notoriety more than a decade ago as “Jack the Snipper” is behind bars again. Jeffrey Gelinas, 39, of Manchester faces a felony charge of indecent exposure for allegedly exposing himself to an 11-year-old girl in a Salem bookstore last month.

He was arraigned Tuesday in 10th Circuit Court in Salem and ordered held in the county jail on $50,000 cash bail.

Gelinas made national headlines in 2003 when he was the prime suspect in a series of break-ins near the University of New Hampshire in which the intruder removed or cut women’s clothing while they slept. He ultimately served time in state prison after pleading guilty to attempted burglary in 2005.

He has two previous convictions for indecent exposure, police said, in 2013 and 2014.

In this case, his alleged victim was in the children’s section at Barnes and Noble April1 12 when she said Gelinas exposed himself, Salem Detective Robert Genest wrote in an affidavit.

“She said that she was shocked by what she had seen and went to find her sister,” Genest wrote.

After the incident, the girl told her parents, who then called store employees, according to the report.

Store employees identified Gelinas from a separate indecent exposure case at a Barnes and Noble in 2013, according to police.

Should Gelinas make bail, Judge Robert Stephen ordered him not to have contact with anyone under 18 and to remain drug and alcohol free. In addition, Gelinas is banned from every retail store in Salem and every Barnes and Noble in the state.

When Salem police visited Gelinas at his Manchester apartment, he first said he didn’t remember when he was last in Salem or in that bookstore, police said. But he later identified himself as the man captured by store security cameras, police said.

The alleged victim and her sister identified a photo of Gelinas as the man who exposed himself, according to Genest.

He was arrested Monday.

But even before that, Gelinas was facing a charge from the Department of Corrections for violating his probation, according to department spokesman Jeff Lyons.

The DOC filed a probation violation in Nashua Superior Court two weeks ago, Lyons said, because Gelinas didn’t tell his parole officer he had been questioned by police.

The court will schedule a probation revocation hearing and determine what penalties, if any, to impose, Lyons said.

Gelinas is on probation until October 2016, Lyons said, for an indecent exposure charge.

Gelinas has a probable cause hearing in Salem May 28 for the most recent charge.

James Niedzinski of The Eagle-Tribune reported this story. Material from the Associated Press was used in the story.