State v. Patel

OPINION

Justice FLAHERTY,

for the Court.

In 1996, when the defendant Tajendra Patel (T.J.) married Komal Patel (Komal), the relationship between T.J. and Komal’s family, who did not approve of the marriage, was very strained. Unfortunately, the marriage itself also became turbulent, and, in September 2001, Komal Patel took their four-year-old daughter, Kajal, and left the defendant.

For some time, Komal and Kajal lived at the Founder’s Brook Motel in Portsmouth with Komal’s sister, Preña Patel (Preña), her brother-in-law, Sanjeev Patel (San-jeev), and their eight-year-old son, Jay. After Komal…