[N]eighbors said Karen Boonchuilier, who died earlier this month in Arlington, was a mystery. Boonchuilier rarely left the house at 182 Warm Brook Road.
“She didn’t even come out and get her mail,” said David Brown, Boonchuilier’s mailman and neighbor.
Boonchuilier didn’t want to go out and she didn’t want others to come in. She barricaded the door with heavy objects and hung heavy curtains over the windows.
“She told me she was afraid,” said Kat Brown, David’s wife.
Boonchuilier, 42, had only lived in Vermont a short time. Police arrived at her home around 9:30 a.m. Dec. 14 after receiving a 911 call from a man who had just moved in with her. Boonchuilier was found dead upstairs.
“The way that her body presented was a little unusual — a little outside what we would usually see,” said Lt. John-Paul Schmidt, who called the death “suspicious.”
Schmidt declined to give further details. He said police haven’t ruled out foul play.
“We want to be thorough before we make any determinations,” he said.
When Boonchuilier arrived in the rural neighborhood on Warm Brook Road, the safe feeling of the area changed.
“People started locking their doors,” David Brown said.
Neighbors never heard noises or arguments next door and it wasn’t clear to them what was going on in Boonchuilier’s home, but it was obvious, “She had lots of problems,” David Brown said.
Police were at Boonchuilier’s home on at least four occasions the month before she died. On Nov. 23, Boonchuilier’s boyfriend Scott Topham, 34, was arrested after he threatened Boonchuilier’s life, police said.
Topham threw her across the room one day and put his thumbs against her throat so hard she passed out, she told police. When she woke up, she was laying on the bedroom floor and Topham was standing over her with a kitchen knife, according to Trooper Justin Walker’s affidavit.
“Boonchuilier stated she pled for her life and begged Topham not to kill her,” Walker wrote. “Topham dropped the knife and said ‘you’re lucky to be alive.’”
Topham was also controlling, according to the affidavit. She couldn’t shower or brush her teeth without him telling her to do so. If she didn’t listen, Topham said he’d kill her. Walker wrote that she was convinced Topam would “have his friends come kill her, and also kill her family if she ever ‘snitched’ on him.”
Boonchuilier told police Topham was a member of the Bloods gang. She said she got to know Topham, who was homeless, on Facebook. They later met in Massachusetts. Boonchuilier decided to bring him to Vermont to live with her.
Topham was charged with first-degree aggravated domestic assault with a weapon and domestic assault. Topham refused to sign the conditions of release order, preventing him from making contact with Boonchuilier.
Topham was being held without bail when Boonchilier died. He remains lodged at the Marble Valley Regional Correctional Facility.
Lt. Schmidt said police do not have not have a suspect. They have not yet interviewed Topham about Boonchuilier’s death, but Schmidt said they would before the investigation is complete.
He wasn’t sure if there was a link between the incident involving Topham and Boonchuilier’s death.
“That was a consideration,” he said.
Schmidt said there were other factors.
Boonchuilier moved to Vermont in the summer. She was arrested in June for driving under the influence in Pownal after she drove her Subaru into a ditch, according to a police report. Boonchuilier told police she had been lost and was looking for an address.
Boonchuilier was cited again in July for trying to prevent a family member from making a 911 call for help during a domestic violence incident.
One neighbor said it seemed like Boonchulier moved to Vermont to start over.
“She was trying to make the right choices, but she seemed to invite people in that weren’t the right choices,” the neighbor said.
Boonchuilier became even more secluded after Topham was arrested. She seemed paranoid that someone was going to kill her, said Kat Brown, who checked on Boonchuilier nearly every day. Sometimes Boonchuilier hid in a closet with Brown knocked on the door.
Soon after Topham was arrested, Brown noticed Boonchuilier had a black right eye.
Boonchuilier told Brown she fell down the stairs and got hurt.
A week before Boonchuilier died, Brown noticed Boonchuilier had a fever. Brown encouraged her to seek medical help but Boonchuilier wouldn’t listen.
Brown said Boonchuilier complained of ailments, such as stomach pain, but she didn’t take care of herself. Before she died, Boonchuilier had another man, named “Dave” living with her.
Brown tried to visit Boonchuilier the day before her body was found. Brown wanted to deliver a Christmas tree to Boonchuilier but Dave, who answered the door that Thursday afternoon, said Boonchuilier wasn’t available.
“He said she was very sick and she was upstairs resting,” Brown said.
“That Thursday eats at me sometimes, but you can’t go there,” said Brown, as she looked back.
“He didn’t seem like a violent person,” Brown added. “He didn’t strike me as that.”
Police have not yet released Dave’s name to the public. Lt. Schmidt said he spoke with Dave “several” times about the incident.
Schmidt said police were waiting for autopsy and toxicology results.
Boonchilier’s mother Sheila DeRensis declined to comment.
Her mother’s partner Beverly Goodman Park, who lives in Massachusetts, said Boonchuilier grew up in Newton, Massachusetts. She was one of five siblings.
“She loved music and art. She loved people. She especially loved her dogs,” Park said.
Park said the police reports have blown Boonchuilier’s case out of proportion. Park believed Boonchuilier died of natural causes. Park said Boonchuilier had a cut on the back of her head just before she died from falling down the stairs again.
“Our feeling is the infection started it that’s what did it,” Park said.
