In Her Latest Book, Burlington Author Thea Lewis Chronicles Local True Crime 

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• True Crime Stories of Burlington, Vermont by Thea Lewis, the History Press, 160 pages. $24.99. | Thea Lewis

Thea Lewis is best known for leading ghost tours of Burlington and writing books about the supernatural, from Haunted Inns and Ghostly Getaways of Vermont to the children's book There's a Witch in My Sock Drawer! But history can sometimes be scarier than legend. So Lewis has been expanding upon her paranormal portfolio to tackle an even eerier subject: true crime.

Her new book, True Crime Stories of Burlington, Vermont, covers offenses spanning 1871 to 2011, ranging from horrific murders to the bizarre theft of garden potatoes. Published by the History Press, the book is more "factually based" than her colorful Queen City Ghostwalk tours, Lewis said.

Still, Lewis' playful commentary makes the collection of crimes more than just the facts. For example, the 19th-century serial killer H.H. Holmes, who briefly enrolled at the University of Vermont, "was absolutely a loner, and his friend died from a fall," Lewis writes. "(Are you suspicious? It would be hard not to be)."

Local readers will come across familiar places as the book explores the sordid side of Burlington: brothels in the Old North End, a murder at the Champlain Farms convenience store downtown and filicide at the Shalom Shuk parking lot behind Ohavi Zedek Synagogue. In the third case, a woman named Marilyn Dietl shot and killed her daughter, Judy, in 1977 after learning she was dating a Black man who was an alleged pimp. In court, Marilyn's defense was that she had to kill her daughter to save her from a life of prostitution.

To get the full context surrounding stories such as Dietl's, Lewis conducted extensive research. She dug through special collections at the University of Vermont, as well as newspaper clippings and court records. She interviewed former Chittenden County state's attorney Mark Keller and victims' family members when she could.

Lewis, a Burlington native, also pulled from her memories in a few cases. She knew convicted murderers Ellen Ducharme and Samuel Wright Jr. Those personal connections made the research process especially fascinating, Lewis said. She discussed the book with Seven Days over coffee at Speeder & Earl's.

What draws you to true crime?

True crime is such a big thing these days. It's kind of inescapable now. But I've always had an interest in that kind of darker side of the way humans function. I grew up in the Old North End of Burlington, where you are often dealing with people who have fewer economic means, who sometimes turn to doing things they shouldn't in order to make ends meet. From a sociological standpoint, it's something I have always wondered about.

Is there one story from the book that stands out as memorable?

The Judy Dietl story. As a mother, I can't imagine being able to justify killing or harming your own child. It's just not something that I could ever find within me. I kept going back and saying to myself, Why would she think this was OK? Even if my kid had committed some kind of heinous crime, I'd be sitting them down and saying, "Hey, listen, we've got to get you help." I would never think, This is the day she dies and then arrange to go kill her in a parking lot. It's just crazy.

In the second chapter, you write about finding old newspaper articles about a stabbing in 1881 to be biased. How did you deal with conflicting accounts when deciding how to present the crimes?

I think most news is pretty even-handed. But back in the 1800s and early 1900s, people editorialized a lot. And in that story, I thought it was so funny that a reporter would come right out and say, "The guy doesn't look guilty." I'm thinking Albert Mercier [the alleged murderer] must have had a real baby face.

Now, bias in a local news story is not going to be what it would have been back in the 1860s, but it's still something I think about. When I started doing my haunted tours, I said to myself, The idea of ghosts and whether there's ghostly activity is so subjective anyway. And I said, I'm not going to add a story to the tour until I have five eyewitness accounts that are compelling and sound like they fit. [For the book,] there are a few decades of online resources to be able to source that stuff. I have friends at Channel 3, and I could call on them.

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• From left: Samuel Wright Jr., convicted of killing Kimberly Giroux in a 1986 robbery; the Colchester High School yearbook photo of Judy Dietl, who died in 1977; H.H. Holmes, a notorious 19th-century serial killer who briefly attended the University of Vermont

True crime stories can sometimes inadvertently glorify violence. How did you balance focusing on the perpetrators' stories versus the impact on victims?

That's a tough one for me. Going back to the story of Ellen [Ducharme], I knew this person. She was a very pretty young woman who just always looked like she was on the verge of something. Her eyes had a really sad story to tell. And I just wonder, Was there something that I could have done for her? Or could I have worked with someone else to do something for her? But I was a young mother when I knew her, with two kids at the time. Sam Wright Jr., who worked in the bakery next to the candy store I managed, even though absolutely he could be a blowhard, was a charmer. He was somebody I would have conversations with.

You can't take away from what you know about their crime, but the piece of them that's human makes it even more intriguing. Sam was a person who was married with kids, and he went off the deep end. What is it that makes a person take that leap? So, absolutely, my heart bleeds for the victims' families and the loss of the victim. But the perpetrators are a fascinating human study, too. I can't say that I walk away from their stories with absolutely no sympathy for their plights.

After writing this book, do you have any other takeaways about violent crime?

Murders are born of desperation and opportunism. I thought a lot about the whole idea of nature versus nurture, why some people who have grown up [in difficult circumstances] end up never harming anyone and why some people feel like it's their right to be able to kill someone.

If you look at most of the cases, there are these people who just seem to not look at the world in the same way other people do. If you look at their backgrounds, there have always been these seeds of crossing the line. I think a lot of the time people who murder are people with secrets — whether they're secrets that have been exposed little by little or big secrets that blow up all at once.

From True Crime Stories of Burlington, Vermont: "From the Police Blotter"

In December 1921, local police finally caught up with a man who'd been brazenly poaching poultry in Burlington. Hildred Jones, the son of the infamous Battery Street brawler May (Jones) Bee, was nabbed in the vicinity of Cherry and South Champlain Streets. Though all his chickens had apparently gone off to roost in the stewpots of his patrons, officers were confident they had enough evidence for an arrest.

Jones, who'd hit henhouses in neighborhoods all over the city—some of them twice—had ruffled quite a few feathers, as it was thought, based on his prolific thievery, that he was actually running an entire ring of chicken thieves.

Word on the street was that he charged twenty-five cents a pound, but police had a hard time confirming that number, since Jones's customers, feeling they'd gotten a good deal, weren't inclined to squawk.