[B]URLINGTON — Police have arrested a fifth suspect in the murder of Amos Beede. Last month, Beede died from injuries sustained during a brutal beating in a South End homeless camp.
Amber Dennis, 29, who was staying at the camp, was arrested Monday for allegedly participating in the assault that led to Beede’s death. She is charged with second degree murder.
Dennis, who is being held on $100,000 bail will be arraigned Wednesday.
The other four suspects in the killing fled Vermont shortly after the assault, police say, and were arrested June 2 in San Diego, California. Erik Averill, 21, Jordan Paul, 21, Myia Barber, 22, and Allison Gee, 25, also face second degree murder charges in Beede’s killing. If convicted, they face 20 years to life in prison.
Officials say they expect the four will be returned to Vermont by June 30, and will likely be arraigned at that time.
Beede, who was well known in Burlington’s homeless community, became embroiled in a dispute between two homeless camps in the Barge Canal area off Pine Street. Beede was a transgender man, but police say they don’t believe his gender identity was a motive in the attack, though they haven’t ruled it out.
State’s Attorney TJ Donovan said Tuesday that the investigation is ongoing. He would not say if more people may be charged in the killing.
Though he lived in Milton, Beede would make regular trips to Burlington and frequently camped with friends in the homeless community.
Several residents of the Barge Canal camps told police that Beede retaliated to an earlier slight against a friend by pouring bottles of urine on Averill’s tent. Once Averill found out it was Beede, he enlisted the other suspects to assault him, according to police.
Police tracked Beede’s cell phone to Dennis and her boyfriend, Ryan Stanley, who was also living in the camp. They told detectives they found the phone near the camp and did not realize it belonged to Beede.
However, a person who borrowed the phone to make a call told police that “Dennis obtained the phone from a fight that she had been engaged in,” investigators said, according to a court document.
There were several other people in the homeless camp that night who have not been charged with any crime, but Dennis was initially the only person who told police she witnessed the assault. In a sworn statement to police, Dennis denied involvement in the beating.
Among those in the camp that night were Joshua Baker and Gavin Walendy. Baker spoke at recent a vigil for Beede, describing him as a friend and saying that Beede had selflessly paid for his wedding to Walendy.
Police interviewed both Baker and Walendy during their investigation. Both said they left Beede alone as the suspects approached, because they feared they too would be assaulted if they stayed. However, neither called police to report the attack. Walendy later told police he witnessed the assault, and Dennis was among those punching and kicking Beede.
The assault took place in the early morning hours, but it was not until after 11 a.m. that another resident of the homeless camp called police. Beede died several days later in the hospital from his injuries.
Burlington Police Lt. Shawn Burke said Tuesday that investigators knew Dennis was present and were suspicious about her role in the assault, but it was statements from the other suspects that led to her arrest.
Dennis and Stanley, 26, were drinking downtown with the other suspects and at least one other person on the night Beede was beaten, according to a police affidavit.
Dennis said after the attack they split off and returned to their tent at the encampment. That contradicts statements made by Stanley and several other people interviewed by police.
Stanley told police he and Dennis continued to drink with the group at the camp where Averill and the others were staying. He returned alone to the tent, he said.
He said he awoke after a commotion to see several of the suspects who were later arrested in California, but told police that Dennis was not there. Dennis told police she was in the tent with Stanley, but woke up and witnessed the assault. She told police that she did not think the other suspects knew she was watching.
All four suspects arrested in California, Erik Averill, Jordan Paul, Myia Barber and Allison Gee, gave statements to investigators that implicate Dennis in the assault on Beede, the affidavit shows.
Dennis told police it was Gee and Barber who pulled Beede from Baker and Walendy’s tent, and that the four other suspects kicked and punched him for several minutes, at times striking him with objects from the camp, including a plastic crate.
Gee told police it was Dennis and Barber who pulled Beede from the tent as the assault began, and that Dennis and Barber punched and kicked Beede during the attack.
Averill, Paul, Barber and Gee each gave statements acknowledging some level of involvement in the attack, but each one attempted to minimize their own role while implicating others as leading the charge, the court document shows.
In accounts of the assault, the suspects say that Beede was awake after being dragged from the tent and fought back initially before begging his attackers to stop.
During an interview with police, Gee went from denying any knowledge of the incident to admitting she lost control for a period of time and was involved in the beating.
Gee, who said she had never met Beede before, told police it was Barber who was egging Averill on, and that the two, who were dating, would get crazy when they were drunk. She said Paul, who is her boyfriend, tried to talk Averill out of fighting Beede that night.
Paul also initially denied being present for the assault, but later admitted to striking Beede several times. He told police that Averill hit Beede in the head with a barbecue grill and stomped on his head.
Paul said that at one point Averill yelled, “You freak … this is what you get for throwing piss on my tent. … You don’t fuck with dirty kids,” according to the affidavit. Dirty kids is a reference to being homeless, according to police.
Paul told police that the “gay guys,” referring to Baker and Walendy, returned to the camp after the assault, and did not want Beede’s bloody body in front of their tent, so he and the others pulled Beede’s body into the brush.
Paul told police he returned to find Beede a few hours after the assault and he was shivering and having trouble breathing. He said he then covered Beede with a blanket. It was not long after that he Averill, Barber and Gee fled in Gee’s car, according to the affidavit.
When asked by police what he would say to Beede’s family, Paul became “visibly emotional,” and said he felt horrible. In a letter to Beede’s family quoted in the affidavit, Paul asked for forgiveness and wrote, “I hate myself for my part in this (sic) unhuman act i wihs (sic) i could take it all back.”
Investigators said that Barber was smiling and laughing at times while she described her role in the assault. Barber minimized Averill’s role and said it was Paul who did most of the damage. At one point, when investigators had left the room, Barber said out loud, “I deserve to die for this fucking shit,” according to the affidavit.
Averill told police he was blackout drunk the night of the assault, but acknowledged being furious at Beede for pouring urine on his belongings. He later acknowledged punching and kicking Beede several times, but he, too, suggested Paul was primarily responsible for the attack.
Averill, at one point, stumbled over what pronouns to use when referring to Beede, telling police “she…he…I don’t know what it is,” according to the affidavit, and also said it was “kind of scary” that two gay men would share a tent.
Police have said that Averill has a history of assaults on other homeless people, but none that appear motivated by bias. Paul told investigators he did not believe Averill was motivated by bias because he “hung out with a few people like that.”
Vermont’s hate crime statute can be applied to any crime in which prosecutors can show that the perpetrator was motivated by animus toward a specific group, including transgender people.
If a judge finds that a crime was motivated by hate, the sentence can be automatically enhanced. However, for crimes that carry a minimum sentence of more than five years, the hate crime enhancement is merely a factor for the judge to consider during sentencing, according to statute.
Correction: An earlier version of this story stated that Amber Dennis was the only person who told police she witnessed the assault. Gavin Walendy initially told police he did not witness the assault, but in a later interview, Walendy told police that he had witnessed the assault.
