A week before Emily Long shot and killed her husband and two young children, and then killed herself inside of their Madbury home, her employer notified local police that he suspected Long had embezzled as much as $660,000 from his business in recent years.
The staggering amount of money was allegedly taken from Wing-Itz, a local chain of chicken wing restaurants with locations in Dover, Hampton and Newmarket, where Long worked as director of operations.
“Honestly, I have no idea what she was doing with the money,” Derek Fisher, the restaurants’ owner, said Friday in a phone interview. Fisher said he alerted authorities on August 11 about the suspected embezzlement. Long began working for the company in 2018 and was, according to Fisher, involved with every aspect of the chain’s finances.
It isn’t clear what role, if any, the allegations of theft played in Long’s decisions on August 18, when she shot and killed her family and herself. A toddler was found unharmed in the home.
The New Hampshire Attorney General’s office, in the days following the killings, urged the public to not speculate as to what may have prompted Long’s actions.
Emily’s husband Ryan Long was diagnosed in April with glioblastoma, an aggressive and often fatal brain tumor, according to a series of TikTok videos posted by Long.
In these intimate videos, Long described the stress her husband’s diagnosis had on herself and her children. In at least one video, she talked about the family’s decision to sell her husband’s truck, noting that they could use the money for other purposes.
According to Fisher, Long was in charge of collecting cash from the restaurants, but rather than depositing the money, she began allegedly taking it for herself, beginning in early 2023. Fisher alleges Long also began writing checks to herself out of the company’s bank accounts.
Records from the Hampton Police Department confirm they were investigating Long, but do not provide any evidence to corroborate the specific dollar amount Long may have stolen.
Fisher said the alleged theft went undetected, in part, because he was focused on expanding the chain of restaurants.
“Am I embarrassed that this happened to me? Absolutely,” he said. “But this is somebody I had working for me for several years. I trusted her immensely.”
Fisher said he first became aware of possible irregularities in Wing-Itz’s finances in June, when the company’s bank alerted him to a series of transactions involving Long’s personal accounts. Fisher said he confronted Long, and asked her to provide him with copies of her own bank statements. He said that Long, in early August, showed him fabricated financial records.
On August 11, a week before the killings, Fisher said he received a text from Long notifying him that she would resign. That afternoon, he alerted law enforcement agencies in Hampton, Newmarket and Dover about the alleged thefts.
“On the 12th, she sent me a message just basically apologizing. Not for anything specific, just saying she was sorry,” he said. “And then that was it.”
State authorities said Friday that they are aware of the allegations of theft, and that the investigation into the murder-suicide is ongoing, but that no other information was immediately available.
Ryan Long, Emily’s husband, served as a school psychologist in the Oyster River School District. Both attended the University of New Hampshire.