Toes found near Sheila LaBarre's Epping horse farm around the time she was arrested for the torture slayings of two boyfriends have never been identified, but they could lead to a new homicide probe if the man's identity is ever discovered, according to Senior Assistant Attorney General Jane Young.

“Investigators did find remains of a third person,” Young said. “There was no way to determine who it was.”

Authorities would like to hear from the family or friends of any man who may have had possible ties to LaBarre and has been missing at least since that time six years ago, she said.

The remains were the toes of an unidentified man, Young confirmed, but she wouldn't say how many were found, their exact location or how long they had been there.

“The toes were located near (LaBarre's) property. They were not the remains of Kenneth Countie or Michael Deloge.

“If additional information is developed that indicates those toes belong to someone who met with foul play, we would look at that,” Young said.

LaBarre, who turns 54 today, is serving two life sentences for killing Countie, 24, of Wilmington, Mass., and Deloge, 38, of Portsmouth. Young said LaBarre would be considered a possible suspect if the unidentified man was in fact the victim of homicide.

Some testing has been done on the toes, she said.

If someone had DNA from another individual, testing could determine if they matched, Young said.

“We could not match the toes to any evidence we had,” Young said.

Young did say the toes were not found in the fire pit in front of LaBarre's home where Countie's burned bone fragments were discovered in March 2006. Deloge's body was never been found, but blood and documents linked him to LaBarre. LaBarre admitted killing both men.

Last week, LaBarre wrote to the New Hampshire Union Leader, saying she wants to serve her two life sentences with no chance for parole in New Hampshire or Massachusetts. She claimed she has been abused by staff and fellow inmates in the Florida prison where she was transferred on an interstate compact.

“The truth is I am afraid and fear for my life,” LaBarre wrote. “Two white female staff members abused me physically and psychologically in late May 2012.”

But she may also want to return because she is being held in close management, separated from the other inmates, because she battered a fellow prisoner, according to Ann Howard, director of public affairs at the Florida Department of Corrections.

She is incarcerated at the Lowell Correctional Institution in Ocala, Fla.

LaBarre said she reported the abuse, but the staff began a “cover-up” instead.

“This is a very corrupt prison,” LaBarre wrote.

She said she had contacted several attorneys seeking representation.

“I miss New Hampshire and Massachusetts. LCI does not like Yankees.”

While she was born in the south, LaBarre said, “I lived in New Hampshire for decades. In my heart and soul, I am a Yankee I even have a light Yankee accent too.”

Countie's mother, Carolynn Lodge, of Billerica, Mass., said LaBarre is still trying to manipulate the public by contacting the newspaper.

“Everybody is still talking about Sheila,” Lodge said. “They get taken in by the little web she weaves. She did it in Epping. She did it with the police and she is still doing it six years later.

Jeffrey Denner, who represented LaBarre when she unsuccessfully argued she was not guilty by reason of insanity, said he recently received a letter from LaBarre and will try to help her.

“I don't know what's going on. Prisons can be abusive places,” Denner said.

LaBarre was a very sick woman who told the prosecution's psychiatrist that she was indeed sane, that it was Denner and her other lawyers who wanted her to use the insanity defense, he said.

“She wanted to be sane, but she was the craziest person I ever met,” Denner said. “When the verdict was read, she collapsed in my arms and said, 'Thank God, they know I'm sane,'” Denner said.

LaBarre's sister, Lynn Noojin, said she has been receiving desperate letters from LaBarre complaining about abuse.

Noojin, who still lives in Fort Payne, Ala., where she and LaBarre grew up, said she doesn't condone what her sister did, but she sends her money to buy canteen items and writes to her.

Noojin has also become close friends with Countie's mother, Carolynn Lodge.

LaBarre is being held in solitary confinement because she fought with a younger inmate over a bag of Fritos, Noojin said.

She described LaBarre as very intelligent, and said it was common knowledge that LaBarre was physically and sexually abused as a child.

Noojin said she came to New Hampshire during her sister's trial and remembers hearing very little about the toes that were discovered, but never identified.

“I asked her when they found those toes: 'Are they going to find somebody else?' She said no,” Noojin said.

Like many others, Noojin wondered if LaBarre had killed her much older common-law husband, chiropractor Wilfred LaBarre. He died in 2000 at the age of 74. After his death, his body was immediately cremated, Noojin said.

“She said no. She claims he was the love of her life,” Noojin said. There is no excuse for abusing anyone in jail, even LaBarre, Noojin said.

“I know she did awful things, but she didn't get the death sentence,” Noojin said.

“I don't think it's right to mistreat anybody.”

nwest@unionleader.com