Hampton Union, Tuesday, February 19, 2008
[The following article is courtesy of the Hampton Union and Seacoast Online.]
A woman who is serving a life sentence for aiding her then husband to commit murder has dropped her lawsuit against the warden of the Goffstown State Prison.
Susan McLaughlin filed the federal suit last October claiming unlawful prison conditions and that guards have illegally strip searched her. A week later, however, she dropped the suit in which she wanted a judge to release her “A.S.A.P.”
McLaughlin was convicted 20 years ago in connection with the 1988 killing of Robert Cushing at his Hampton home on Winnacunnet Road.
Her husband, Robert McLaughlin, a former Hampton police officer, was convicted of killing Cushing with a shotgun on June 1, 1988, following a long-standing feud between the two men.
Susan McLaughlin drove the get-away car and later asked individuals “not to talk” about the case against her husband.
Her suit against the warden claimed prison conditions were unlawful because of overcrowding, which has made it harder to sign up for classes offered.
She also claims smaller food portions and competition among prisoners participating in hobby craft, which allows inmates to sell quilts and clothes they make.
McLaughlin said she was also upset that she was strip searched after returning to her cell from seeing visitors.