Hypothermia appears to have killed a homeless man found unresponsive in a Burlington city park earlier this year, an autopsy found.
Paramedics encountered Perry Thornley, 61, lying face down in the snow in Battery Park on the morning of January 8.
Temperatures had dipped below freezing the previous night, and Thornley arrived at the hospital with a body temperature of 59 degrees, according to a police report released on Wednesday. An autopsy concluded his death was the result of “probable hypothermia due to environmental exposure” and listed alcohol use as a contributing factor, the police report says.
Exposure deaths are rare in Vermont: A joint investigation from Seven Days and Vermont Public found no deaths attributed to hypothermia between 2021 and 2024.
But Thornley is now at least the second homeless person to die from hypothermia this winter. Richard Govea, 51, was found dead behind a local business in Barre following a brutally cold December night.
Thornley had been sleeping in a bush near the Battery Park stone wall that overlooks Lake Champlain in the days before his death. Police found a hat, gloves, an emergency shelter kit and an empty bottle of whiskey in the space.
His death shook local service providers, who had gotten to know him during his years of living on the streets. At a January press conference, Burlington Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak mentioned Thornley by name and held a moment of silence in his memory.
An obituary published in Seven Days described him as having a “magnetic way about him,” with a look in his eye that often suggested he was up to something.
“Some referred to him as a rascal, then a fondness would grow and flourish into a caring relationship,” the obituary read. “This is who Perry was: a tough exterior; a soft soul.”
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