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View ProfilesPublished November 1, 2023 at 10:00 a.m.
Sylvie Blanchard always felt safe living in the small Orange County town of Washington. For decades, she and her husband owned the Washington Village Store, which serves as the commercial and social heart of the community.
But after a recent spate of homicides, including the discovery of a body on a rural road just a few miles from the store, Blanchard said her sense of security has been shaken.
"I didn't ever lock my doors at night, but now I do," Blanchard said.
Between October 5 and 30, eight people — seven with gunshot wounds — were killed in rural Vermont communities. Just two of the cases have led to arrests, and the cases are taxing the Vermont State Police.
Major Dan Trudeau said the death toll, during such a short time period, was "certainly the most I can remember in my 20-plus years here at the state police."
Some of the cases share similarities. Three of the victims, for instance, were found fatally shot off isolated, rural roads. But the cases are also distinctive enough that investigators are "highly confident" they are not related, Trudeau said.
The victims, who range in age, gender and race, include a retired college dean killed on a walking trail in Castleton, a Vermont National Guard member shot at his home in Wheelock and two men from Massachusetts discovered shot in the head in Eden. On Monday, a 14-year-old boy was fatally shot inside a car in Bristol.
The uptick in homicides in rural areas stands in stark contrast to the decline in Burlington, which has recorded just one murder so far this year after five in 2022. There have been fewer reports of gunfire in the Queen City, too: 10 so far this year compared to 25 during the same period last year.
The wave of rural violence has left Blanchard feeling anxious. She wonders whether some of the killings are linked to the drug trade, given what she's seen in her town of just 1,000 residents.
"We get a lot of people around here that you can see are high on drugs," Blanchard said.
A sketch of the suspect in Honoree Fleming's murder.
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The rash of murders began on October 5, when 77-year-old Honoree Fleming was shot and killed on a rail trail in Castleton, not far from the Vermont State University-Castleton campus where she formerly served as dean of education. Police released a sketch of a man who witnesses said they'd seen wearing a gray shirt and a backpack in the area Fleming was found. Her husband, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and best-selling author Ron Powers, has said police believe she was killed at random.
A little over a week later, a 27-year-old man from Hartford, Conn., was shot multiple times at a home in Newport Town, just a mile or so from the Canadian border. Officials have said they suspect drugs may have been involved but have not named any suspects in the murder of Wilmer Rodriguez.
Two days later, on October 16, Gunnar Watson was found shot dead in his home in Wheelock, a rural area west of Lyndon. The 27-year-old Army National Guard sergeant left behind a wife, two young children and family members baffled by what could have triggered the killing.
"We don't know why this senselessness happened," his mother-in-law, Elizabeth St. Louis, told WCAX-TV.
Around the same time, two 21-year-old Massachusetts men who had been traveling together in Vermont were reported missing by their families. Police put out a public alert for the men, Jahim Solomon of Pittsfield and Eric White of Chicopee, and said they'd disappeared "under suspicious circumstances." Their bodies were later discovered about a mile apart in rural Eden. Both had been shot in the head.
Solomon had a criminal history that included a July 2022 arrest in Pittsfield for possession of cocaine with intent to distribute and possession of a large-capacity firearm. Trudeau would not say whether police suspect that the killings were drug related.
Family members of the men told police the pair had recently been in Burlington, Lowell, Morrisville and Stowe. But the authorities have had trouble tracking down people who might know more, "probably because they've either fled or they're just difficult to find," Trudeau said.
"It's making it a little difficult to put it all together," he added.
The same day the young men were found dead in Eden, hunters found another body in a field along Poor Farm Road in Washington. Officials labeled the death of Tanairy "Tanya" Velazquez Estrada, 23, most recently of Barre, as suspicious.
Her mother, who lives in Fitchburg, Mass., reported Velazquez Estrada missing the day her body was found, saying she hadn't heard from her in a week. Police haven't said how the young woman died, pending toxicology reports, which can take months.
Last Friday, hunters found a body in some woods off Gore Road in Plainfield, near L.R. Jones State Forest. Jeffrey Caron, 42, also of Barre, had been shot and his body burned. Two men were arrested on Monday and charged in the killing, which court documents describe as stemming from a drug-related dispute.
Two weeks before his murder, Caron had been arrested in Barre with crack cocaine, fentanyl and $3,500 in cash. He and a codefendant were charged with fentanyl trafficking after what local police described as a "lengthy investigation."
Most recently, on Monday, Madden Gouveia, 14, was shot inside a car in Bristol, allegedly by another 14-year-old, Hussein Mohamed of Burlington. Gouveia later died at the hospital, and Mohamed was charged as an adult with second-degree murder.
According to a police affidavit filed on Tuesday, Gouveia was sitting in the front seat of a car, and Mohamed was handling a 9mm pistol in the seat behind him. Then a shot rang out, and Gouveia exclaimed that he'd been hit.
"I didn't mean to shoot you," Mohamed said, according to the affidavit.
In court in Middlebury on Tuesday, a judge ordered Mohamed to be held without bail.
Trudeau, speaking to reporters outside the Morristown Police Department last week prior to Gouveia's death, acknowledged that the rash of homicides was unusual. From 2012 to 2021, the state averaged 12.4 homicides per year. But that number spiked to 22 in 2022. Vermont's had 21 so far this year, and Velazquez Estrada's death could mean the state has already matched last year's total.
The surge is straining staffing levels in the state police's criminal division, but they're making progress on cases every day, Trudeau said.
"Detectives are tired. They've had a lot of overnight cases," he said.
Vermont still has one of lowest violent crime rates in the nation. Even when cases spiked last year, the state's rate of 3.4 homicides per 100,000 residents was well under the national figure of 6.3 per 100,000.
That might not comfort Guy and Pam Trag, who live half a mile from where Velazquez Estrada's body was found on October 25. From the Trags' home, Poor Farm Road climbs a steep hill through thick forest for about a quarter mile, then levels out and passes fields lined with stone walls. Last week, detectives and crime scene technicians scoured the area where the body had been discovered in a stand of trees beside an old stone foundation. Cops asked the Trags whether they had security footage to share.
Search-and-rescue dogs and their handlers traipsed across green fields and plodded through woods covered with a crunchy carpet of autumn leaves. The remote road — parts of which are impassible for most vehicles — is sometimes used by people looking to party, Guy Trag said.
"Truthfully, it's probably easier to get away with stuff way out here," he said.
After detectives took down the crime scene tape and packed up their gear, a visit to the spot behind the foundation turned up all manner of detritus.
A Mike's Hard Lemonade six-pack container lay in the brush. Broken glass, bits of rusted metal and charred wood from old bonfires littered the site. Part of an animal skull rested on a rock.
Guy Trag said the killings in rural areas such as theirs didn't leave him feeling less safe. The couple have two Great Danes, Brutus and Bella, who provide all the security they need, he said.
But the recent deaths served as a reminder that crime can reach even the most peaceful parts of the state.
"It's sad, really," he said, "but that's the culture today."
The original print version of this article was headlined "Murderville, Vt. | A spate of rural homicides puts residents of small towns on edge"
Tags: Crime, Vermont State Police, homicide, suspicious death, Washington, Castleton, Bristol, Plainfield, Eden, Wheelock, Newport
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