The town has about 800 residents but receives thousands of workers, shoppers and motorists each day.
NEWINGTON, N.H. — In a town where shopping centers and highways far outsize the resident population, police arrested a 47-year-old man after a woman ran crying from an Olive Garden and accused him of forcing her to marry him at gunpoint.
The arrest of Daniel Ouellet on June 6 turned a familiar Seacoast retail stop into the final known scene of an alleged ordeal spanning Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Maine. The woman described threats, restricted access to her phone, armed travel and an injury with a box cutter. Ouellet denied the allegations in court and remained subject to further investigation.
Newington is easy to pass through without seeing the small historic town behind its commercial frontage. Its year-round population hovers around 800, and the U.S. Census Bureau lists a land area of about 8.1 square miles. Yet the town’s own economic figures estimate that its commercial, industrial and waterfront areas, together with the nearby Pease Tradeport, hold about 15,000 jobs. More than 5,000 shoppers arrive on an average day, while roughly 70,000 vehicles use the Spaulding Turnpike. The town shares ownership of New Hampshire’s only deep-water port and is served by rail, buses and Portsmouth International Airport at Pease. Restaurants and large parking lots stand close to major routes serving Portsmouth, Dover, Rochester and Somersworth. It was inside that stream of ordinary weekend movement that officers found a woman who said she had spent days under threat.
Shortly before 11:30 a.m., Newington officers entered the Olive Garden area to conduct a welfare check requested through Pennsylvania State Police. A woman in Pennsylvania had become concerned about her daughter and tracked the daughter’s phone to the restaurant, Police Chief Michael Bilodeau said. When cruisers arrived, the daughter ran outside in tears. Officers noted marks they believed were cigarette burns on her legs, according to the arrest affidavit. She asked for an emergency protective order, signaling that she feared continued contact with the man still at the restaurant. Police separated her from Ouellet, who referred to her as his wife. The order was later granted. The woman’s identity was withheld, and authorities did not disclose whether customers or restaurant workers saw the encounter before police arrived.
Ouellet told officers they had come to the restaurant for a meal and said the woman was upset about her mother. He claimed the mother wanted to force her into a Pennsylvania religious cult and said the woman was tired of the conflict. When an officer asked him to identify the group, he called it “the Stars and the Free Masons,” the affidavit said. Ouellet told police that he and the woman had married June 1 and assured them that he was a “really safe guy.” Officers wrote that he became nervous after learning that he could not speak with her. They also questioned why the pair had stayed in changing locations after the ceremony rather than at his trailer. Police said his explanations were inconsistent, creating a sharp contrast between his calm description of a restaurant outing and the woman’s appearance.
The woman gave police an account that began before she entered New Hampshire. She said Ouellet had contacted her more than a week earlier and threatened to hurt her family unless she traveled north from Pennsylvania. Authorities have not released the history of their relationship. She said that after she arrived, Ouellet placed a .45-caliber handgun in his pocket and announced that they were going to the town hall in Lee to marry. According to her statement, he said he would “make her pay” if she refused. She told officers that Ouellet took her phone and maintained control over it for several days. Despite that alleged control, the device later supplied the location that enabled her mother to direct police to Newington.
The alleged marriage shifted the case from a threat reported across state lines to a sequence involving public records and municipal spaces. The woman said they married June 1 at Lee Town Hall. Lee lies inland from Newington, beyond the busy Portsmouth-area retail corridor, and includes wooded roads, farms and campgrounds. The woman said she then stayed with Ouellet in a trailer at a Lee campground until June 5. Authorities have not released the marriage license, identified anyone who performed the ceremony or explained what documents the pair presented. Police also have not said whether town employees noticed signs of distress. Those questions could become important as investigators test the woman’s account and determine whether the ceremony created a valid record despite her allegation that she acted under threat.
By June 5, the woman said, the pair were again moving. She told police that Ouellet made her drive while he sat beside her with a loaded gun aimed at her. Their travel included Maine before they returned to New Hampshire, according to the affidavit. During the trip, she said, Ouellet warned that religious cults were following them. Investigators have not published the full route, the places where they stopped or any surveillance images showing the vehicle. A trip through the Seacoast can quickly cross jurisdictions because Newington sits near Portsmouth, the Maine line and major north-south roads. A drive of only several miles can involve local police, state police and separate county prosecutors. That geography complicates the work of assigning each alleged act to the agency with legal authority over it.
The woman told officers that the violence continued on the morning of June 6. She said Ouellet cut her hand with a box cutter in what she described as a “satanic ritual.” Police later searched his vehicle and reported finding a copy of “The Satanic Bible,” a sweatshirt and a bag. Investigators did not suggest that owning the book was itself illegal. Its reported value to the case came from whether it supported or contradicted details in the woman’s statement. Initial accounts did not say whether police recovered the box cutter, the handgun or other objects that could be tested. They also did not describe the condition of the woman’s hand or say whether she received hospital treatment. The visible marks on her legs and her emotional condition were among the observations officers recorded at the restaurant.
The public setting mattered because Newington’s commercial zone is built for visibility and movement. The town’s population grew from early settlements along the Piscataqua River, and its older center still includes a colonial meetinghouse and historic homes. Much of its modern public identity, however, developed after Pease Air Force Base opened in the 1950s and commercial growth spread north from Portsmouth in the 1970s and 1980s. Malls, retail centers and restaurants followed the region’s highways. The former military base later became the Pease International Tradeport after the base closed in 1991. That history produced a place where a tiny residential community hosts traffic more typical of a much larger city. A phone signal pointing to a chain restaurant could therefore guide police to a precise public location without revealing the quieter places where the woman said earlier events occurred.
Police arrested Ouellet on an allegation that he used a deadly weapon to prevent someone from reporting a crime or injury. Reports also described counts involving domestic violence and possession of a deadly weapon. Bilodeau said more charges were expected, and authorities in Lee were examining conduct said to have happened there. The distinction is procedural as well as geographic. Newington officers responded to the welfare check and made the arrest, but another agency could handle allegations tied to the campground or town hall. Maine authorities could become involved if investigators identify a criminal act within that state. Pennsylvania authorities supplied the first law enforcement connection after the mother sought help there.
Concern about weapons also prompted police activity in Lee. A shelter-in-place order was issued while officers searched for Ouellet, then lifted after he was taken into custody in Portsmouth, according to local reports. The public warning showed how quickly the case expanded beyond the restaurant arrest. Police had to account for places where Ouellet had stayed, weapons he might possess and anyone who could encounter him. Officials did not initially release a full explanation of the Lee operation. The shelter order and its later cancellation nevertheless marked another public consequence of allegations that had been unfolding largely out of sight.
Ouellet appeared by video before a judge June 8. He said he was “not a physical man” and called the claim that he forced the woman to marry him contrary to his religious belief in free will. “I have never been aggressive with her in ways that were described on that paper,” he said. The judge did not decide guilt at the initial proceeding. Ouellet was held at the Rockingham County Department of Corrections under preventive detention. The woman received a protective order. Prosecutors still faced decisions about additional charges, while investigators could seek phone data, town records, video, medical evidence and items from the vehicle and trailer.
No later trial date was announced in the first public reports. The case remained an allegation under review, with Ouellet entitled to challenge the evidence and the woman’s account still being examined across several jurisdictions. The next public developments were expected to come through additional charging papers, court hearings or police findings concerning the gun, marriage record and locations visited before the arrest.
Author note: Last updated July 11, 2026.