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The New Hampshire Attorney General's Office has confirmed that Cheryl Maher was the woman killed in a New Hampshire murder-suicide over the weekend.

Last year, she was at the center of the nude hot-tubbing scandal — revealed 25 years after the fact — that ended the political career of then-Utah House Majority Leader Kevin Garn.

Susan Morrell, senior assistant New Hampshire attorney general, said Tuesday that Maher, 41, was strangled by her boyfriend's son, 18-year-old Jacob Geiser. Maher also suffered a stab wound to the neck and had sustained at least one blow to the head.

Investigators believe that Geiser killed Maher early Sunday morning before heading to a neighbor's home, where he broke in and threatened residents there. Geiser had pulled the trigger on a shotgun, but it misfired, Morrell said.

He then returned to his home in Weare, N.H., where he killed himself with a single shot from a handgun.

Maher moved into the house with her boyfriend, Joseph, just three months ago. Geiser also lived in the house.

Morrell declined to release any information about the motive for the killing.

After her 1985 encounter with Garn, when she was just 15, Maher's life unraveled. She later attributed her problems to the incident.

Maher's revelation last year about her relationship with Garn was one of Utah's most stunning political scandals and led to the fall of one of the state's leading political figures.

She came forward in the waning days of the 2010 legislative session, contacting House leaders and reporters, revealing that Garn, who was her boss in 1985, had bought her alcohol and hot-tubbed nude with her.

Garn, who was twice Maher's age, acknowledged the incident, though he denied any physical contact with her. Maher insisted there was but would not elaborate.

In 2002, she had confronted Garn and threatened to go public with the incident, and Garn, who at the time was running for Congress, later paid her $150,000 on the condition she sign a nondisclosure agreement.

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