Mother found dead in Berlin; kids found safe after Amber alert, father arrested
Mar. 1—Two little girls reported missing from Berlin early Friday morning were found safe, but their mother is dead and their father has been charged with her murder.
Dustin Mark Duren, 37, was arrested Friday on a charge of second-degree murder in the shooting death of Caitlyn Naffziger, 31, according to the state Attorney General's office.
Police discovered Naffziger's body inside an apartment at 1063 Main St. in Berlin around 10:30 p.m. Thursday. An autopsy conducted Friday by Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Mitchell Weinberg determined the cause of the woman's death was a single gunshot wound to the head, officials said.
Her death was ruled a homicide.
State Police issued an Amber Alert before dawn Friday, asking for the public's help in locating the couple's two daughters — 4-year-old Elowyn Duren and 1-year-old Vaelyn Duren. The children had last been seen with their father in Berlin around 8 p.m. Thursday.
Message boards on state highways asked drivers to be on the lookout for Duren's white 2017 Subaru Impreza.
The Amber Alert took on a more ominous tone Friday morning when authorities confirmed that the children's mother had been found dead. Within hours, however, officials announced that the girls had been found safe and their father was in police custody in Keene.
In a brief news conference Friday night, Assistant Attorney General Bethany Durand said a tip from someone who had seen the Amber Alert led police to apprehend Duren in a Keene parking lot. The children were unharmed, and are in the care of the state Division for Children, Youth and Families, she said.
Thomas Randall was cooking bacon at the Five Guys restaurant in Keene when he saw police surrounding a Subaru in a nearby parking lot, and cruisers blocking off nearby roads.
He had seen the Amber Alert on his phone around 7 a.m., a few hours earlier.
"They had him surrounded," said Randall, a senior shift leader at the eatery. "He was locked in. He had nowhere to go."
Randall saw the older child come out of the vehicle.
"She seemed a little frantic," Randall said. "She didn't seem hurt.
"This is the last thing I was expecting to experience today at work," he said.
In Berlin, the State Police Major Crime Unit van and several police cruisers were parked on Main Street outside the two-story apartment house where Naffziger's body was found. Officials would not say who lives at the home.
A woman who lives nearby, who identified herself as Jaime (she didn't want her last name used), said she had seen the Amber Alert but knew little about what happened. She said she was heartbroken for the two innocent children involved.
"Those poor babies," she said. "They have no one."
Duren will be arraigned Monday in 1st Circuit Court in Berlin, most likely by video, Assistant AG Durand said.
Online profile
A website, dustinduren.com, includes a lengthy biography of a man by that name who in photos appears to be Duren. On the website, he describes himself as an audio engineer, events technician and video editor.
The bio says Duren joined the Marine Corps after high school graduation and became an expert marksman. It says he deployed to Iraq in 2008 and South Korea in 2010 before being honorably discharged in 2011. He moved to Los Angeles and worked as an audio and visual technician for the Hollywood American Legion and later for Fox Sports as an audio engineer, he said.
At some point, the website said, Duren hit "rock bottom" but "has been steadily recovering and (is) now a father of 2."
Dustin Duren also has a YouTube channel on which he posts videos of him performing music.
One video, uploaded on July 29, 2020, features an original composition called "First Morning." It's described as a "short story of the excitement and uncertainty of having my first child, the joy of her birth, and contemplating our future together."
His preschool-age daughter appears in some of his more recent music videos, smiling and sometimes dancing with him.
Duren also is an avid gamer. Playing as "TheeDoubleD," he has 13,700 subscribers to a separate YouTube channel, where he streams himself playing video games and narrating his progress as jazz and electronic music plays in the background. Children's stuffed toys can be seen in some videos.
In one recent video, Duren pulls his smiling daughter onto his lap and lets her say hi into the microphone.
A year ago, TheeDoubleD posted a photo of his new baby girl, snuggled in her mother's arms. "Sorry for the lack of uploads the past few days but we've been a little busy," he wrote.
His most recent streaming episode was on Tuesday. He was scheduled to post another installment at 9 p.m. Thursday but never went live.
That's the night authorities said Duren's two daughters were seen with him around 8 p.m. in Berlin.
Online, TheeDoubleD's gaming followers waited in vain. "I assume there are some technical difficulties behind the scenes," someone posted.
On Friday, some gamers returned to the channel, one making reference to the Berlin crime and identifying TheeDoubleD as Dustin Duren from New Hampshire.
On one YouTube video, TheeDoubleD talked about having a love-hate relationship with California, and said he now lives "in the Northeast."
It's unclear when or why Duren moved to New Hampshire. But about a year ago, Duren commented on a Twitter post by someone who said they were moving to Massachusetts because New Hampshire "has been taken over by crazy libertarians."
"They're moving TO MA, haha," Duren wrote on March 7, 2023. "This is actually one of the most effective posts to convince me to move to NH."
Authorities are asking anyone with information about the case to call the Berlin Police Department at 603-752-3131 or New Hampshire State Police Headquarters at 603-223-4381.
North Country correspondent John Koziol contributed reporting from Berlin. Staff reporter Michael Cousineau also contributed to this report.
