[H]INESBURG – Residents of a rural road in Hinesburg say they want security improvements to a trailhead parking lot with frequent suspicious activity after a homicide occurred late Thursday night.
Craig Chevrier’s front door is 350 feet from where the victim was shot multiple times. He said a stray bullet could have struck his home and harmed himself, his wife or his 11-year-old son.
“The sense of our little Vermont bubble of safety and community and all the kids being the same age and living in peace in this neighborhood, and in this quiet burg is sort of tarnished right now, if not shattered,” Chevrier said. “And I’m hoping we can regain it.”
David Auclair, 45, of Williston was found dead at around 10:40 p.m. Thursday in the parking lot of the LaPlatte Headwaters Town Forest. Police initially responded to reports of gunshots in the area, and found Auclair’s body near his gray GMC pickup truck.
Adam Silverman, a spokesperson for the Vermont State Police, said the investigation remains active and ongoing.
Around 9:45 p.m. Thursday night, Chevrier was nodding off on the couch when his wife heard five or six gunshots outside. His son, watching fireflies out the window, said he saw the headlights from the victim’s pickup truck shining into the field.
A neighbor who also heard the shots called the police.
“I have a feeling what instigated the call was the gunshots and those happened shortly after they pulled in,” Chevrier said. “And what we were seeing was just his headlights on, because his truck was running. And he was laying there dead for a couple hours.”
At 1:30 a.m. he walked outside and saw police vehicles responding to the crime scene.
Residents say it’s common to hear gunshots in the neighborhood on occasion during the daytime. Some people target practice in their backyards. But the succession of late night gunfire was unusual.
Resident David Deforge said at approximately 9:45 p.m. he heard five shots in rapid succession. The following morning he saw lots of cars near his home with flashers on, as state police and media came to the scene.
“I’m wondering if there was more of a drug deal, because that parking area has been there forever,” he said.
State police responded after Hinesburg Police requested assistance. They believe the incident was a “targeted event” and it has been deemed a homicide. On Friday evening the medical examiner determined the cause of death as multiple gunshot wounds.
History of late-night activity
Chevrier, who has lived on Gilman Road for 16 years, said he sees suspicious activity at the parking area on a weekly basis. About once a month he sees vehicles, often including one with an out-of-state license plate, that enter the lot for a short period of time and leave.
When the Hinesburg Land Trust Board secured property for the LaPlatte Headwaters Town Forest a decade ago, Chevrier was on the board and in support of the project. But he now believes having the parking lot open and unsecured 24 hours a day is a mistake.
“The town has essentially created what are perfect drug meetup spots, and perfect places for criminal activity,” he said.
“My concern is it’s not the last shooting because this kind of criminal activity seems to be on the rise, drug dealing.”
Deforge’s home is further from the trailhead and obscured from the parking lot by trees. He said he sometimes sees the lights of vehicles in the lot at night during the wintertime, when the tree cover is bare, which he suspects are youth going to “hang out.”
“People go hiking, they walk their dogs, it’s a recreation path,” Deforge said. “That’s the only thing I see over there.”
Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman lives on Gilman Road about half a mile from the trailhead. He said neighbors who live nearby, which is just north of his farm, have seen parked cars “quite a bit” at night.
“It appears sadly to maybe have been a rendezvous point for drug swaps,” he said. “That’s a rumor that’s gaining some steam.”
‘It certainly shocked a lot of people’
Residents say the area is peaceful and the homicide has taken them by surprise.
Zuckerman said he found out about the murder when the road was closed as he tried to head into town on Friday. A television reporter told him about the incident, and he then called his neighbors who described hearing the gunshots.
“It certainly shocked a lot of people and sort of the tranquility of the neighborhood,” he said.
Gilman Road is a roughly 2.7-mile dirt road off Vermont Route 116, which passes through fields and near the Cedar Knoll Country Club before winding through heavily wooded areas. Most homes are set back from the quiet roadway.
The parking lot for the LaPlatte Town Forest trailhead was empty early Tuesday afternoon, showing no signs a deadly shooting occurred there five days days earlier.
Hinesburg Selectboard Chair Phil Pouech said the shooting was “very unusual.”
“I can’t remember anything like this,” Pouech said. “I’m sure it sort of got people shaken a little bit but we’re waiting to hear what happened.”
Deforge and his wife Dianne have lived in the neighborhood for 22 years, which he describes as a peaceful place to live.
“People go hiking, they walk their dogs, it’s a recreation path,” he said of the park entrance. “That’s the only thing I see over there.”
Chevrier said he and neighbors are stressed out following the killing.
Some of the kids heard the gunshots,” he said. “So they know that the killing happened there. They all know somebody died there.”
Calls for security improvements
Concerned about safety at the trailhead parking lot, Chevrier sent a letter to the Hinesburg Selectboard and other town officials on Monday calling for changes.
The letter suggests the installation of security cameras in public parking lots, along with signs, and closing them off with gates at night. Another proposed alternative is closing all unsecured and unmonitored parking lots which are within 500 feet of residences.
“This is one life that could have definitely been saved by a video surveillance camera,” Chevrier said. “If there was a sign that said ‘This parking lot is under surveillance 24 hours a day’ I don’t think someone would have shot someone with a gun, that close range in that parking lot.”
Pouech, the selectboard chair, said he hasn’t received official complaints from residents other than Chevrier.
He said he briefly discussed the incident with Police Chief Anthony Cambridge, who plans to review department data to look at past complaints and reports at the trailhead and similar lots.
The Hinesburg Police Department said Cambridge was out of the office until Friday. A reporter was told no one else from the force could comment on the security concerns on Gilman Road.
“It certainly doesn’t seem like a parking lot problem or a Hinesburg problem,” Pouech said. “It seems like something that happened in our town, that had nothing to do with our town.”
The Hinesburg Trail Committee has also not brought up any issues with the site, according to Pouech. The selectboard plans to discuss security at trailhead parking lots during its regularly scheduled meeting on Thursday.
Pouech said the town would get a recommendation from police and public input before proceeding with installing gates or security cameras. He anticipates cost could be a concern.
“I’m going to guess there’s a ton of people thinking this is an overreach,” he said.
Deforge said he thinks closing off trailhead parking lots at night will just send people who frequent the site to other locations, such as cemeteries. But he thinks a security camera would help deter criminal activity.
Zuckerman said it’s worth exploring different possibilities, whether that be locking a gate or more frequent patrols. But he thinks the root causes of potential problems at the site need to be examined.
“Nobody expects this anywhere and in any of these communities,” he said. “This is far outside of anyone’s imagination that this would happen.”
Chevrier said the homicide has changed the community on the normally quiet road.
“I would say we’re coming together in an in an emotional way that I’ve never seen before it in, in that neighborhood, because we’re all shaken and upset,” he said. “And we all want the crime to be solved. And we all want it to not happen again.”
Police continue to ask the public for any information that might be helpful, sharing tips either by calling the Williston barracks at 802-878-7111 or providing the information online at https://vsp.vermont.gov/tipsubmit.
