Tag: Community

LOWELL — From the sidewalk outside Majestic Barber Shop on Middlesex Street on Friday, owner George Voutselas traced a finger toward the bullet hole in the window frame at the front of the shop that he’s run for five and a half decades. The now-cracked glass that bears the shop’s name stands strong despite this clash with a bullet, which Voutselas points out is still lodged in the wooden frame.

The shooting that caused the damage must have happened in the early hours of Wednesday. The shop is closed that day, but Voutselas had stopped by in the late afternoon to grab something when he noticed the spiderweb cracks stretching across the exterior of the double-pane window.

“I said, ‘What the hell,’” Voutselas recalled.

At first, he didn’t realize a bullet grazing the edge of the glass had caused the cracks. It wasn’t until he called the Lowell Police and they came to investigate that he learned the truth.

“The officer said, ‘That looks like a bullet in there,’ and I said, ‘What?!’” Voutselas said.

Who fired the bullet — or why — is a mystery. At least for now.

It was reported in an emergency radio broadcast on Wednesday afternoon that a spent shell casing was recovered nearby around the intersection of Middlesex Street and Moulton Avenue. The Lowell Police Department was unavailable to comment about the shot that struck Voutselas’ shop.

The window will need to be replaced, and when it is, Voutselas said he’s been tasked with calling police so a detective can come by to dig the round out of the wood.

Voutselas, who turns 84 in December, spent nearly his entire life in Lowell before moving a few years ago to a 55-and-older community in Dracut. His father, Arthur, started the shop in 1921 after immigrating from Greece in 1914. Voutselas bought it in the early 1960s, and he’s been cutting hair on Middlesex Street ever since.

For 55 years, he’s been a fixture in the neighborhood — first just across the street, in a space that’s now a parking garage, and since 2001 at the current location at 50 Middlesex St.

“It’s a long legacy,” Voutselas said. “They even gave me a key to the city when we turned 100 years here.”

The framed key hangs next to the mirror in front of the barber chair.

“I’ve been here a long time. I’ve never gotten hit by a bullet though,” he said with a chuckle.

The cracked window wasn’t the first shock Voutselas faced in recent weeks — and it doesn’t come close to what he experienced last month.

On Sept. 21, he and his family were caught in the chaos of a shooting at Sky Meadow Country Club in Nashua, New Hampshire, that led to the death of one man.

“We met face to face with the shooter, actually,” Voutselas said, recalling the traumatic episode while seated in his desk chair situated next to his shop’s fractured front window.

Voutselas was at the country club for the wedding of his great-niece. The outdoor ceremony took place that afternoon with about 120 guests in attendance. Later, everyone moved inside for the reception.

While the celebration was underway that night, gunfire erupted at Prime, the club’s restaurant. Authorities say Hunter Nadeau, 23, of Nashua, a former employee of the restaurant, walked in and opened fire.

Voutselas would later learn that Robert DeCesare Jr., 59, also of Nashua, stood up to protect his family from the shooter and was gunned down.

“Killed him,” Voutselas said, “right in front of his wife and daughter.”

As reported in multiple outlets from witness accounts, a guest is alleged to have struck Nadeau in the face with a chair, knocking the gun from his hands.

“Thank God for that guy,” Voutselas said. “He saved a lot of lives, probably.”

As this was going on inside Prime, Voutselas and members of his family, including his wife, daughter, and 12-year-old grandson, and the other wedding guests heard the gunfire and were urged by staff to escape through the kitchen. Voutselas recalled his daughter gripping his hand so tightly as they fled.

Amid the chaos, he noticed a man running with them — his face bloodied and unfamiliar.

“This guy is running with us,” he said. “We thought he had just fallen and banged his head. They opened up the door to go out back, and he ran ahead of us.”

Voutselas said he was standing just a few feet away when they became aware of who this man was: the alleged gunman.

“He looked at all of us, and said, ‘Free the children of Palestine, free the children of Palestine,’ and ‘I’m the shooter,’ and he’s going like this,” Voutselas said, mimicking the motion of a gun with his hand. “He was making believe he was shooting at us.”

Voutselas noted that, at the time, none of them realized the gunman had been disarmed. There was fear he might pull out another weapon and start shooting. The group retreated back inside. The suspect fled.

Following a massive police response, Nadeau was tracked down nearby. He has since been charged with second-degree murder and multiple other offenses related to the incident. While a motive has not been publicly confirmed, New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella has said they do not believe the shooting was a “hate-based act,” despite Nadeau’s alleged comments regarding Palestine.

Authorities have also said there is no known connection between Nadeau and DeCesare.

Though the shooter had fled by the time they went back inside the club, Voutselas recalled how police on scene warned there may be a second gunman — information that was later ruled out. Law enforcement instructed guests to run down a hill to get away from the scene. Women who had been dancing moments earlier left their shoes behind in the rush. The group was taken to the Spit Brook Road Fire Station, where the news of the shooting was already playing on TV.

“It was like a movie,” Voutselas said. “I’m watching the drones, the helicopters, the SWAT teams.”

From there, they were bussed to the Sheraton Hotel on Tara Boulevard, where news crews and a heavy police presence gathered. Voutselas noted that the bride and her bridesmaids had escaped out another door at the club during the chaos, knocking on the door of a nearby residence. They stayed there until they reunited with family at the hotel.

“They fell to the ground and cried,” Voutselas said. “What a scene that was.”

“Now every year they are going to have to relive that whole thing,” he added, referencing the future wedding anniversaries.

Voutselas also reflected on the death of DeCesare. It was later revealed by DeCesare’s mother, Evie O’Rourke, that her son had been dining with family that night. His daughter’s wedding was scheduled just six weeks after the shooting. Voutselas said he heard the family still plans to hold the wedding on the original date, while adding, “But she won’t have a father to walk her down the aisle.”

“The whole world has gone crazy,” Voutselas said. “Now you just go out and shoot people. In the old days, you’d go to the park and duke it out.

“And to do that?” he added. “People are flipping out, but you can’t tell who is going to flip out at the time. They say take guns away from people. Listen, take away the machine guns and all that. No one is going to go hunting with a machine gun.”

While sitting in his shop on Friday, Voutselas recalled seeing photos of Nadeau on the news the day after the shooting. He immediately recognized him as the man they had encountered outside the venue.

Voutselas described the alleged gunman as a bizarre character — “out there,” he said, based on that brief but unsettling exchange.

“His demeanor and the way he talked and the way his eyes were,” he said. “For a while there, I was seeing his face. I was seeing his eyes.”

Voutselas added simply that his family is doing well, despite the tragic and horrific encounter. In the meantime, Voutselas is still trimming hair at his shop, behind the cracked front window with a bullet embedded in the frame, waiting to be recovered.

It’s been an unusual few weeks, and he hopes nothing worse is waiting around the corner.

“It’s crazy,” he chuckled. “It seems like they’re trying to get me. God is pissed off at me about something.”

Follow Aaron Curtis on X @aselahcurtis, or on Bluesky @aaronscurtis.bsky.social.