(This story was updated July 6, 2017, at 4:30 p.m.)
[B]ARRE — Jody Herring pleaded guilty Thursday to four counts of murder after her defense attorney reached a plea deal.
The agreement ends two years of litigation. Herring admitted slaying three of her relatives — Rhonda Herring, Regina Herring and Julie Falzarano — as well as Lara Sobel, a social worker for the Vermont Department for Children and Families.
By accepting the deal, Herring gains a chance at parole, her lawyer said.
Herring, 42, told the judge Thursday in Washington County criminal court that she used a rifle to kill her relatives in their Berlin home on the morning of Aug. 7, 2015, and then shot Sobel in a parking lot outside Sobel’s workplace in Barre that afternoon.
Herring admitted telling her relatives “they better stop calling DCF” or they would be sorry. She also blamed Sobel for efforts to terminate her parental rights to her youngest daughter.
While Herring’s lawyer had previously questioned whether her mental health was sufficient to stand trial, Herring told the judge she entered into the plea deal in sound mind, without any physical, mental or substance-related impairment.
“I have, over the course of my life, suffered from significant mental health disease,” reads the agreement Herring signed. “At the current time, however, I am not suffering from any mental health disease or defect which interferes with my ability to communicate with my attorneys” or understand other parts of the legal process.
In August 2015, prosecutors charged Herring with three counts of aggravated murder — each with a mandatory minimum sentence of life in prison without parole — for the killings of her relatives. They also charged her with one count of first-degree murder — with a sentence ranging from 35 years to life without parole — for Sobel’s murder.
However, in exchange for her guilty pleas, prosecutors reduced the aggravated murder charges to second-degree murder, carrying a sentence ranging from 20 years to life without parole. Herring still pleaded guilty to the original first-degree murder charge in Sobel’s death.
That means Herring admitted intentionally murdering four people, but the second-degree murder charges mean prosecutors do not consider the slayings of her aunt and two cousins in Berlin to be premeditated.
Herring’s prison sentence will be determined at a future sentencing hearing. John Treadwell, the main prosecutor on the case, said the sentencing hearing is tentatively scheduled for October, but could be later.
David Sleigh, Herring’s defense attorney, said she is considered competent to stand trial and that the plea deal would not allow Herring to be placed in a hospital setting in lieu of prison.
However, he said the deal allows her to avoid a mandatory life sentence without parole. She would have been automatically given three consecutive life sentences if convicted on the three aggravated murder counts.
“If we had lost even one of the three counts in Berlin, there would have been no option for a parole sentence,” Sleigh said. “Balancing risks and benefits, this seemed like the best available way to avoid her dying in jail.”
From his perspective, Treadwell said the plea deal still allows prosecutors to argue at the sentencing hearing for a sentence of life without parole while allowing the court flexibility in determining the appropriate sentence.
“Our position is that we will have the ability to argue for any sentence that we believe is appropriate, and we are confident that we will be able to convince the judge to impose what we believe is a fair and just sentence in the case,” Treadwell said.
Ken Schatz, the commissioner of the Department for Children and Families, issued a statement praising the plea deal.
“Today is a somber day for Department for Children and Families’ staff – for all our staff, social workers in particular. We are grateful that Ms. Herring is being held accountable for her actions and hope that the case will conclude soon so Lara Sobel’s family and friends, our staff, and the Herring family can have closure and begin to heal,” he said.
“Our social workers and staff are our most important resources in fulfilling our mission of strengthening families and keeping children safe. We are grateful to our staff, who compassionately support Vermont’s children and families through some of the most difficult moments of their lives.”
Treadwell said Herring’s family members supported the deal because it resolves whether she is guilty of intentional murder, even if the charges for killing her relatives were reduced.
“They have expressed relief that that step has been achieved,” Treadwell said. “They’ve indicated that they certainly understand the reason why the state has pursued this deal.”
Many of Herring’s family members and friends of her murdered relatives attended the hearing. At the end of the hearing, one of Herring’s adult daughters left the courtroom crying.
