By Molly AK Connors
Concord Monitor
CONCORD, N.H. — A Loudon man has been charged with reckless conduct after the police said he shot his wife in the stomach and legs through the wall of their bedroom while he was cleaning a gun on Sunday night.
Mark Hillson, 44, was held on $25,000 cash bail in the Merrimack County Jail last night. He was arraigned earlier in the day at the district court in Concord on the Class B felony. His wife, identified by authorities as Gina Hillson, 49, suffered a “grazing- type wound” to her abdomen and gunshots to both legs, including her left shin, according to an affidavit by Sgt. John Marasco of the New Hampshire State Police.
Gina Hillson was in stable condition at Concord Hospital yesterday afternoon, the state police and the Loudon police said in a statement yesterday afternoon.
The incident occurred at the couple’s slate-blue shingled home at 46 Flagg Road on Sunday at about 8:15 p.m. They said they were the only two in the house, which is in a wooded and sparsely populated area.
After a discussion with his wife about her ex-husband and son, Hillson locked himself in the couple’s bedroom, Marasco wrote. Gina Hillson tried to open the door but couldn’t, she told the police.
Once in the bedroom, Hillson took out what the police said was a " Beretta-style weapon from a safe” and wiped it down. The gun’s make and model was not released.
Then, according to Marasco’s affidavit, Hillson “chambered a round into the weapon a second time, and upon allowing the slide to move forward, the weapon discharged.” It discharged twice, according to the police.
It is unclear when or how the first round was loaded. Hillson told the police he was “unsure as to how the weapon discharged; however, he confirmed that the weapon was in his hands and under his control at the time of the discharge,” Marasco wrote.
Gina Hillson had turned to walk away from the bedroom and was “at the threshold to the kitchen,” when she was shot, Marasco’s affidavit said. She had a phone in her hand at the time and dialed 911 herself. Loudon police officers and paramedics responded first.
After the gun fired, Hillson said he saw holes in the wall, heard his wife screaming and then helped her.
Hillson also told the police he had a “military background,” is “familiar with various types of weaponry” and has “never experience(d) a situation in which a weapon has discharged in a manner” such as he described Sunday night, Marasco wrote.
Gina Hillson was interviewed by the police in the operating ward recovery area around 1:30 a.m., Marasco wrote. She said her husband “had never shot a weapon inside of their residence in the past.” She declined to give the police permission to search her home.
“I don’t want you in my house,” she told the police, Marasco wrote. Mark Hillson was interviewed about 45 minutes later in the waiting area outside the operating ward.
Later in the morning, he was granted a court-appointed public defender and was ordered to have no contact with his wife.
He is next due in court for a probable cause hearing on Nov. 21.
Copyright 2011 Concord Monitor/Sunday Monitor