[B]URLINGTON – A 34-year-old Burlington man was arraigned on charges of first-degree murder and attempted murder a day after police said he hacked his wife to death with a meat cleaver and nearly killed his mother-in-law in the same manner.
Aita Gurung pleaded not guilty to the charges through his public defender Friday in Chittenden County Superior Court.
Gurung was arrested Thursday after the bloody attack that police said began inside their 72 Hyde Street home, and spilled onto the street where it was witnessed by several neighbors.
A Nepali interpreter translated the proceedings for Gurung who did not say a word in court Friday.
Judge Kevin Griffin ordered Gurung held without bail. He granted a request from Gurung’s attorney, Sara Puls, for Gurung to undergo a competency and sanity evaluation as a hospital inpatient.
The state challenged that request, saying an initial mental health screening did not provide evidence of a “major mental health disorder.” Griffin said that based on the screening an inpatient evaluation was “more than warranted.”
The judge ordered Gurung placed in Department of Mental Health custody. He will be sent to a secure psychiatric facility pending the outcome of his evaluation.
Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George told reporters that there are “obviously issues around mental health in this case, but at this time we have no evidence to believe that is what caused this crime.”
George said the crimes were premeditated and her office has brought first degree charges of murder and attempted murder. She said Gurung repeatedly struck both victims with the cleaver suggesting he intended to kill them, George said. Premeditation does not require elaborate preplanning, she said, and can occur within seconds of a crime.
George, wearing a purple ribbon to commemorate domestic violence awareness month, told reporters this was a “tragic” example of such behavior. Forty-nine percent of homicides in Vermont are the result of domestic violence, according to a recent Seven Days report.
The county prosecutor visited the Hyde Street scene. George said it was “heartbreaking” to see blood stains in the yard on a quiet and peaceful residential street.
Witnesses told police they saw Gurung strike his wife, Yogeswari Kahdka, 32, repeatedly with the cleaver in the driveway of their home. Kahdka’s mother Thulsa Rimal, 54, was found slumped in the entryway of their home with severe injuries to her head, according to a police affidavit.
Both women were transported to the University of Vermont Medical Center. Kahdka was pronounced dead at the hospital, while Rimal was in critical but stable condition on Friday.
Gurung and Kahdka’s 8-year-old daughter was at school at the time of the attack. She was placed in the custody of her maternal grandfather, but only after police obtained written permission from Gurung, the alleged killer, as required by the Department for Children and families.
Burlington Police Chief Brandon del Pozo said that requirement is a “strange artifact of how our system works.”
The attack was captured on cellphone video by multiple witnesses. The scene was chaotic and horrific. One witness, later identified as a John Casey, approached Gurung with a gun moments before police arrived. Casey said he would shoot Gurung if he didn’t stop.
Deputy Police Chief Shawn Burke said the gun was a black-powder revolver that didn’t have the plugs required to actually be fired.
One video reviewed by police showed Gurung covered in blood holding the bloody meat cleaver, while a witness shouts at him to get away from Kahdka’s prone body, according to court documents.
“She betray me, she betray me,” Gurung can be heard saying on the video, according to the records.
Gurung can then be seen striking her at least two more times in the head with the cleaver as witnesses continue to shout at him. Moments later, Casey can be seen entering the video holding his revolver and telling Gurung to back off.
Police arrived roughly 30 seconds after Casey, according to Lt. Detective Michael Warren. With guns drawn, police told Gurung drop the cleaver. Gurung complied and police subdued him with a shield.
“I think the last minute of the incident was really significant, and unfortunately we just weren’t able to intervene quickly enough,” Warren said at a Thursday news conference. He estimated police were on the scene within two minutes of receiving the first 911 call.
Warren described both victims’ wounds as “extremely severe” with extremities nearly hacked off in one case and fractures to both of their skulls.
Chief del Pozo praised his officers for responding quickly to a dangerous situation and making an arrest without causing further injury.
Gurung and his family are Nepali refugees, but police know little else about them, del Pozo said.
“These are folks that are quiet and kept to themselves,” the chief said, “Part of that is the Nepalese community is not as integrated into the rest of the community as we would like. It’s a cultural issue that the whole community is trying to overcome. Part of it is that they just kept out of trouble, which is a great thing, so we don’t know much.”
How much of a role Gurung’s mental health played in the incident is unclear. Del Pozo said Gurung entered an Old North End deli on Oct. 7 and asked the proprietor to call the police.
“He made some statements about how he was involved in domestic violence situation with his wife, that he was having some mental health issues and that he needed help,” del Pozo said.
Investigators went to Gurung’s home to look for evidence of domestic violence, but found nothing. Officers then went to speak with Khadka at the Shelburne Road hotel where she worked, according to del Pozo.
“They interviewed her there. She said, ‘Yes, my husband is having some mental health issues. He does take medicine. I think he’s slipping off his meds. This is a problem, but I don’t think he committed a crime against me the night before,’” del Pozo said.
Lacking probable cause that a crime occurred, police called emergency responders who took Gurung to the University of Vermont Medical Center, del Pozo said.
Michael Carrese, spokesman for the hospital, said in an email that “due to federal privacy regulations we have no information that can be shared” about Gurung.
It’s unclear if Gurung was admitted to a psychiatric ward or the emergency room, and whether he was at the hospital through Thursday.
Gurung’s father-in-law told police Gurung was released from the medical center, and picked up by his wife, just hours before police were called to the home at 2:30 p.m. Thursday. A police affidavit states that Gurung was wearing a hospital bracelet when he was arrested.
The father-in-law said that Gurung was at the hospital voluntarily for mental health treatment, and Gurung was released at his own request, according to del Pozo.
The Burlington Police chief said he was not aware of Gurung having any police contact prior Oct. 7. An incident history in the court record shows he was sought as a “person of interest” in a November 2015, incident, but there was no further information.
This is the second recent high profile case in which a person released by the University of Vermont Medical Center has committed a violent crime. In both instances, the incidents were shrouded in a veil of medical privacy.
Stephen Bourgoin, who faces second-degree murder charges in a wrong-way crash on Interstate 89 last year that killed five teenagers, was at the hospital before the incident.
“We don’t have access to their medical records. We requested multiple times in the Bourgoin case and were denied, and I imagine we will be in this case as well,” George said.
The courts generally don’t allow prosecutors access to a defendant’s medical records based on physician-patient privilege. To obtain them, prosecutors would need evidence of their relevance or that the privilege doesn’t apply to specific portions of the medical record, George said.
If there were statements from a defendant in the medical record suggesting he or she wanted to harm people, and then the person was released from the hospital, “that would be a serious issue,” George said.
“Without that information it’s really hard to tell what happened while they were there. We have no idea what conversations they had with their treating physicians,” George said.
Though George’s office argued that Gurung should be jailed, not hospitalized, she said there is too little capacity in Vermont’s mental health system to accommodate people who need to be hospitalized.
“We’ve had multiple cases in criminal court where an inpatient evaluation, like today, is ordered and the individual is held in the jail because there aren’t any beds to bring them to,” George said. “It happens more often than not that they’ll at least spend a day or two in jail, and often longer than that.”
The same is true for people who seek voluntary or civil commitments to psychiatric facilities in Vermont, with medical providers telling lawmakers in February that patients routinely wait for days or weeks in emergency departments before psychiatric beds become available.
In a statement reflecting on the violent incident, Mayor Miro Weinberger said, “my thoughts are with Yogeswari Khadka’s friends and family. My sympathy lies especially with her young daughter, and her mother, Thulsa Rimal, who continues to receive treatment at the UVM Medical Center.”
“No family should have to endure the pain they are going through. I am grateful for the bravery of her neighbors, who helped to contain a terrible situation, and the remarkable professionalism, courage and decisiveness of the Burlington Police Department officers who responded to this scene,” the mayor’s statement concludes.
