A standing-room-only crowd at the Federated Church of East Arlington presented a sea of serious faces for almost the entire hour-plus question and answer session with state police officers and Bennington County State’s Attorney Erica Marthage. The questions reflected the sober mood that prevails in the area, with no one yet arrested for the homicide, which also involved a forced entry of the victim’s home.
“We are not just frustrated; we are frightened,” one woman said. “This is very difficult.”
Erica Marthage
Another woman said she recently became aware of a number of break-ins and other crimes that took place around the same time the woman, Helen Jones, 81, was killed.
“Why were we not made aware that this activity was happening?” she asked.
“My concern is for my children,” a woman said. “They are scared to death to walk home from school. What should I tell them?”
Marthage, Lt. Thomas McCoy Jr., commander of the Shaftsbury barracks of the state police, and state police Det. Sgt. Todd Wilkins responded to the questions, trying to allay fears but also stressing that they could not release many details about the active investigation.
Wilkins said he often wishes he could share more with the public, but giving out too much information “can really, really hinder us,” he said. “It can ruin an investigation.”
Marthage agreed, saying she wished she could allay the concerns of residents. “But I have to take these cases to court,” she said. Information about the ongoing investigation that is made public could hurt the prosecution’s case, she said.
She said she has been “very impressed with the state police from day one” of the homicide investigation. Officers and experts from around the state have been made available to assist local authorities in the case. The investigation is considered a top priority statewide, the officials said.
Reports of other burglaries around the time Jones was discovered on Jan. 4, Wilkins said “were discovered in the same time frame [as the homicide], so there was no opportunity to alert you.”
The trooper said “pretty much every arrest” or serious incident results in a press release issued by state police to the media and is posted on the state police website.
Over the past five years, McCoy said the average number of calls to state police for all issues, small to serious, has stayed about the same for Arlington, hovering around 500 calls per year. He said the number of arrests also has stayed roughly the same, ranging from 33 to 52 annually over five years.
Marthage added that, from her experience as a prosecutor, the vast majority of arrests involve a small number of people being arrested more than once.
McCoy said the advice he would offer residents is to “be vigilant, lock your doors and cars and report anything unusual.” He said most burglaries occur when no one is home or the building appears vacant.
Calling 911 and then hiding in a locked area is better than confronting a burglar, Wilkins said, even if the homeowner is armed with a gun.
One local gun dealer said prior to the meeting that his shop has experienced a surge of interest in handguns, much of it directly related to the homicide.
Michael Bucci, manager of the Capital Gun Group shop on Northside Drive in Bennington, said more than a dozen people have called or stopped in since the incident. Six people had purchased handguns by Wednesday, Bucci said.
“This does happen every time there is an incident like an assault or robberies,” he said, and sometimes when there is a national incident, such as a mass shooting or terror attack, there is a surge in sales.
“There is definitely a correlation,” Bucci said.
The officers and Marthage said state police have been “flooding the area” and running down every lead or rumor.
There has been an increased police presence at local schools, the officers said, but that doesn’t mean police believe there is an increased danger to students. However, police have been collecting evidence from school cameras and from captured WiFi signals.
A woman asked if that meant a student is a suspect and could present a danger to other students. “That doesn’t make me feel safe,” she said.
Wilkins stressed that police are primarily “investigating every rumor” they hear but haven’t arrested anyone. “Nobody at the school … would hurt your child,” he added.
Police also said they could not confirm whether there are any suspects, or whether a police search at a house on East Arlington Road on Jan. 11 was linked to the homicide investigation.
Police have “a mountain of evidence” they are sifting through, including possible DNA evidence. Some DNA testing can be done fairly quickly, Marthage said, but other testing must be sent to FBI labs and can take much longer.
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