[A] 60-year-old woman was charged with first-degree murder in Burlington Monday afternoon and is being held without bail as police search for her daughter and another man who are on the run following the discovery of human remains in Highgate.
According to a police affidavit in the case, Carmen Guttilla admitted to police that her daughter, Erika Guttilla, 31, shot her allegedly abusive ex-boyfriend in the head after he had passed out drunk at the family’s house in November last year.
The elder Guttilla told police she was the only other person in the family who knew about the shooting of Troy Ford, 35, and helped wrap up his body in a carpet and store it in a trash can on the back porch of the house for weeks after the fact.
Neighbors found Ford’s body while walking their dogs in the woods near Guttilla’s house on Sunday. Police brought it to Burlington for an autopsy over the weekend and began an investigation that quickly led to Carmen Guttilla’s arrest.
Erika Guttilla fled along with Corey Cassani, 28, her current boyfriend. Police say the pair are considered armed and dangerous. The car they were believed to be driving, a red Chevy Spark, was found Monday afternoon in Swanton, just miles from Highgate.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Monday afternoon that they had not been asked to join the search.
Carmen Guttilla was arraigned in Burlington and pleaded not guilty in the case, despite an affidavit that detailed an interview in which she said that she and her daughter had decided that Ford “had to go” because of his allegedly abusive behavior toward Erika and the whole family.
Judge David Fenster ruled that Carmen Guttilla be held without bail until a weight of evidence hearing, at which point the court will make another determination about whether she will be held without bail through the trial.
State prosecutor John Lavoie said the premeditated, deliberate nature of the crime — and the fact that two suspects remained at large — warranted an order to hold without bail.
“The body was placed in a garbage bag outside the defendant’s door for a month or so before it was moved when the defendant attempted to hide it in the nearby woods,” Lavoie told the judge.
Guttilla’s lawyer, David McColgin, said there was no compelling reason to hold his client. He said Guttilla was not a flight risk, evidenced by the fact that she had not tried to flee at any point after the crime was committed, and was cooperative when police requested an interview.
McColgin said Guttilla had longstanding ties to the Highgate area as a local business owner and needed to be released to care for her ailing husband and other children.
Fenster said another hearing was needed to settle the issue, but decided to hold Guttilla until then. Because Guttilla was charged with a crime that carries a life sentence, he said the burden of proof is on the defense.
According to the police affidavit submitted to the court on Monday, police were already looking into the killing before the bodies were found. On April 12, Edward Bennett, a prisoner in the Northwest State Correctional Facility, informed police about a possible homicide.
He told police he had previously dated Erika Guttilla, whom he described as his “home girl,” and said that prior to his arrest on April 8 he had been at her house when she showed him a “little black gun,” and then asked if he remembered Troy Ford, whose most knew as “Don.”
“He’s buried in my backyard,” Erika told Bennett, according to his recollection in the affidavit.
When Bennett said he didn’t believe her, she showed him the body on the porch and then the blood stains covering the bed and carpets in the room where Ford was allegedly killed, according to the affidavit.
Bennett said he did not go to authorities immediately because the Guttilla family was “crazy” and knew that he was the only person outside the family who was aware of the situation.
Once Bennett was in prison on an unrelated arrest warrant, he decided to talk to police, who then unsuccessfully tried to track down Ford, who was not listed as a missing person. Ford’s family in New York said it was not unusual not to hear from him for a year or more.
Police were contacted about the human remains found in Highgate shortly before 3 p.m. Saturday. A man arrived on the scene shortly before midnight saying that he had heard from another man that Erika had talked about killing a black man about two months ago.
At about 4 a.m., a red Chevy Spark drove past the crime scene, turned around, and drove off, without police making contact with the occupants.
Police proceeded to interview Erika Guttilla’s sister, Melissa, her brother, Dakota, and her mother, Carmen.
The siblings said they were not directly aware of the killing, but confirmed details of the situation surrounding it. Melissa said her parents had told her that Ford had been “taken care of,” but she assumed they were joking.
Police interviewed Carmen Guttilla on Sunday evening. She said that Ford was not only a serial physical and sexual abuser of her daughter, but that through threats and intimidation “took over their lives and held them hostage in their own home,” according to the affidavit.
She said she could not get him out of the house, but had not reported any of the problems to police because she did not want them to know about drug use at her home.
Carmen Guttilla told police that she and her daughter decided that “they couldn’t take it any more” around Thanksgiving of last year, so she left a .380 Glock on a dresser one night, told her daughter “he has to go,” and then, once Ford had passed out drunk, Erika shot him in the head, according to the affidavit.
The mother told police that Ford’s body was moved once she learned that her daughter “ran her mouth” about the murder, but could not recall the exact date, it said.
A call to McColgin, the public defender representing Carmen Guttilla, was not returned late Monday evening.
State police are working with the FBI and U.S. Marshals Service in the search for Erika Guttilla and Corey Cassani.
Police provided the following descriptions of the suspects: Erika Guttilla is a white female, 5 feet 6 inches tall, weighing 120 pounds, with green eyes and blonde hair. Corey Cassani is a white male, 5 feet 9 inches tall, weighing 165 pounds, with brown eyes and brown hair.
Anyone with any information in relation to this case is encouraged to call the Vermont State Police at 802-524-5993.