(This story is by Bob Audette of the Brattleboro Reformer, in which it first appeared.)
[T]OWNSHEND — Police have issued an arrest warrant for a Massachusetts man in connection with the shooting deaths of two people whose bodies were found in the burned-out remains of a cabin where they lived in Townshend.
According to a news release from the Vermont State Police, the Windham County state’s attorney received an arrest warrant for Justin Orwat, 46, of Springfield, Massachusetts, on charges of aggravated murder and first-degree arson.
Orwat was being held Wednesday at the Hamden County jail in Massachusetts on unrelated criminal charges.
The Vermont charges are a result of an ongoing investigation into the Friday house fire.
The two victims were named in the news release as Steven Lovely, 43, and Amanda Sanderson, 35.
The investigation began shortly after the fire, which was called in at 9:34 a.m., was extinguished. The caller reported hearing an explosion and said the residence was on fire. After the investigation began, a nearby neighbor told detectives that at about 8:45 a.m. that day he heard “three quick consecutive gunshots” and was sure “it was not a rifle.”
Vermont State Police investigators were called in, and emergency personnel located two unidentified bodies in the burned wreckage. The bodies were transported to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for post-mortem examination and identification.
Saturday morning the office told detectives that preliminary examination revealed both victims had sustained gunshots. This was not immediately apparent to investigators Friday due to the condition of both victims from the fire.
During the investigation, detectives learned Orwat and his wife, Tami Orwat, 38, of Springfield, Massachusetts, were “associates” of Sanderson and Lovely and had recently spent time at the cabin. The same day of the fire, Justin Orwat was arrested in Massachusetts on outstanding warrants for larceny and shoplifting.
Tami Orwat was located by investigators, and she reported that she and her husband had been living in the cabin with Sanderson and Lovely for approximately two weeks. On Thursday, Orwat said, her husband and Lovely “spent a considerable amount of time” at a home in Bellows Falls. While there, she said, “a group used drugs together.” Orwat said she used heroin and cocaine while her husband and Lovely used heroin, cocaine, bath salts, marijuana and Klonopin.
Before they left the Bellows Falls home about 5 a.m. Friday, “Lovely was boisterous concerning his knowledge that someone had been stealing from him,” said the affidavit. Tami Orwat told detectives she believe Lovely was blaming her husband. “Tami Orwat described a tense scene in the vehicle concerning this topic and said that it continued when they reached their home,” stated the affidavit.
Tami Orwat said her husband attempted to speak to Lovely about the alleged thievery, but Lovely refused to discuss it. Instead, said the affidavit, while at the cabin, Lovely gave Justin Orwat three bindles of heroin for his wife. A short while later, Justin Orwat told his wife to stay in the bedroom while he attempted “to clear the air with Lovely,” Tami Orwat told detectives. Instead, Tami Orwat heard a loud argument followed by gunshots, punctuated with more arguing.
Eventually, Tami Orwat jumped out the window of her bedroom and fled to her vehicle, where she was joined by her husband. Justin Orwat “never told her definitively that he shot and killed Amanda Sanderson and Steven Lovely,” stated the affidavit. “He did however say that the gun would likely be burned in the fire … (telling her) … he used a cigarette lit by a butane lighter to start it.”
She also told detectives that when her husband got in the car he was crying “and told her if he had to go away for a long time that she had to promise not to leave him and to bring their daughter to him for visits,” said the affidavit. “She suspected he was crying because he felt guilty about what he had just done.”
Justin Orwat also allegedly told his wife that Lovely “was planning to kill them in the very near future.” Tami Orwat told detectives while she thinks her husband truly believed what he had said, “she believed that the bath salts he used earlier in the night made Justin paranoid and that … Justin’s use of Klnopin made him violent. She argued that absent his and Steven’s use of drugs that night, this entire incident would not have happened.”
During the fire investigation, the Vermont State Police Arson Investigation Unit “observed indicators that a liquid accelerant had been used” in at least nine locations to start the fire. It has not yet been determined what was type of accelerant was used, but a detective noted an odor “consistent with gasoline.” Detectives in Massachusetts located Orwat’s vehicle, noticing a five-gallon can of gasoline in the vehicle in plain view.
According to court documents, Justin Orwat has a lengthy criminal history, including a manslaughter charge from 1995 when, as an identified member of the Neta gang in Springfield, Massachusetts, he had knowledge of the shooting death by one of his fellow gang members of a suspected member of a rival gang. It is unclear at this time what was the resolution of that charge.
On Oct. 5 of this year, the Bellows Falls Police Department conducted a motor vehicle stop of a vehicle being driven by Lovely. In the vehicle were Sanderson and the Orwats. After a search warrant was issued, officers reported finding $47,000 in the vehicle, as well as a white powder, trace amounts of marijuana and glassine bags.
In 2015, after a traffic stop in Chicopee, Massachusetts, Lovely was cited on a charge of possession with intent to distribute heroin, Oxycodone and Suboxene and possession of cocaine.
Once Justin Orwat is extradited from Massachusetts, he will be arraigned in Windham Superior Court in Brattleboro.
