[B]URLINGTON — A man facing first degree murder and kidnapping charges, who raised concerns when he was left unsupervised in the hospital this week, has died.
Jose Pazos, 53, was allegedly responsible for the death of Kathleen Smith, a social worker at the Howard Center who was found dead, bound by rope, face down, and surrounded by a dried pool of blood in her kitchen in 2010.
Days later police found Pazos in a storage shed at the Middlebury Snow Bowl, where they said he was hiding. A source told police that Pazos had a grudge against Smith because she had taken a position against him in a child custody dispute.
Pazos had been under the care and custody of the Department of Mental Health since the killing. He has not been ruled competent to stand trial.
According to Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George, Pazos died from complications after a heart attack.
He was checked into UVM Medical Center Tuesday morning, and Chittenden County prosecutors were alerted Friday morning of his death.
“Although disappointed that we are precluded from the opportunity to seek his conviction and hold him accountable for the murder of Kathleen Smith,” George said in a statement, “we hope that her family may achieve some measure of closure with the knowledge that he has remained in custody since his arrest and no longer poses a threat to public safety.”
Shortly after he was admitted to the hospital, Burlington Police received a call that Pazos was unsupervised, which Department of Mental Health officials said is something that happens sometimes when patients suffer health care emergencies, though they noted the public is not at risk.
Judge Martin Maley ordered an additional competency examination for Pazos in January, as prosecutors still wanted him held accountable for the crime, which they noted took “a lot of planning and a lot of effort.”
The results of that exam, which was conducted in March, are confidential, though a hearing was scheduled for July 9.
