New Hampshire Paper Ponders 'Mistaken' Identities

By: Joe Strupp Matthew Bergeron was so tired of being identified as a suspect in a sexual assault case that he called The Telegraph of Nashua, N.H., to ask for help.

The Telegraph was not libeling him or even misidentifying the suspect. In a bad luck situation that likely occurs every day somewhere in the newspaper world, Bergeron unfortunately found himself sharing the same name as a news story subject.

In this case, 21-year-old Matthew Bergeron of Nashua, the non-suspect who called the paper, had the same name as 20-year-old Matthew Bergeron of Manchester, who was accused of a 2006 assault on a 12-year-old girl.

After the most recent Telegraph story on the case ran on Aug. 19, Bergeron of Nashua phoned the paper for help to clarify he was not the same person.

At around the same time, the paper received a call from another reader in a similar situation. Elissa Turcotte, formerly of Nashua and now of Londonderry, wanted to clarify that she was not the Alyssa Turcotte of Nashua who was involved in a serious car crash. A story about that incident also ran on Aug. 19.

With both examples occurring on the same day, columnist Stacy Milbouer felt compelled to address the issue in a Page One column that ran Monday, complete with a photo off non-suspect Matthew Bergeron.

"While it's unlikely that there are name doppelgangers out there for most people who get written about in our newspaper, it is possible, and that's what happened to these two Telegraph readers," she wrote. "Adding to the confusion was the lack of a photograph of Bergeron or Turcotte to run with the articles. There's really nothing we can do to prevent people having the same or similar names that appear on our pages, but in these cases, especially for Bergeron, of Nashua, we thought it was worth the time to set the record straight."

Bergeron told Milbouer: "When I saw the story written in the paper two years ago and noticed that we both had the same name and were about the same age I noted the coincidence but didn't really think much about it. But then my mother and I started getting calls and I was getting e-mails from people who had read the article and thought maybe I was the person accused of sexual assault. It was pretty upsetting. And since no photo of that Matthew Bergeron ran in the paper, it was even more difficult. Obviously, they weren't people who were close to me, but they were people who had met me."?

Milbouer was unavailable for comment Monday. But Telegraph Editor Dave Solomon said the column was an appropriate way to handle the two non-story subjects' concerns. He stresses that neither came forward with any demands for clarifications or other negative views: "It was more or less, 'is there anything you can do to help me out?'"

Solomon said this is the first time in his 30 years in the newspaper business that those sharing names with news story subjects have called asking for help, but he adds, "it might come up a lot."

For the record, the other Bergeron, of Manchester, was initially jailed after his December 2006 arrest in Nashua but was later released when his bail was dropped from $100,000 to $50,000, the paper reported. "The most recent article about Bergeron pointed out that he might 'avoid prison but undergo counseling while on probation' under the terms of a plea deal that was proposed just before he was scheduled to appear before a Hillsborough County Superior Court judge and plead guilty to reduced charges and receive sentencing."??