[W]hen the relatives of a Barre 4-year-old first noticed he was missing from a small family gathering Friday, they started by looking inside the house.
Hunter Wiltse and his cousins were in and out of the pool constantly that evening, jumping and splashing, and playing Marco Polo. There was a moment of confusion when another cousin slipped and fell; a couple of adults went to tend to the hurt child. Somewhere in the rush, they lost sight of Hunter.
It wasn’t long until people noticed. A minute, his family members estimated, maybe two.
When the relatives first noticed Hunter was gone, they thought maybe he had gotten out of the pool to go to the bathroom. So all of the aunts and uncles and cousins jumped out of the water and began searching inside the house. The property belonged to a family friend in the process of moving; it was completely empty, devoid even of furniture.
According to Hunter’s 21-year-old brother Ryan, the group spent a few minutes searching on land.
“And then we all said, Oh f—, the pool,’ ” he said.
At 8:15 p.m. Friday, Hunter’s dad, Matthew Wiltse, sent Hunter’s mom, Ami Perkins, a video of Hunter playing in the water while Perkins was at work. At 8:37 p.m., Hunter’s aunt, Amanda Luman, called the Montpelier Police Department to say there had been an accident.
Around 20 minutes later, Hunter was officially pronounced dead.
“They thought he got out, and he was literally in the water with them. That’s heartbreaking,” Perkins said in a phone conversation Tuesday.
The investigation into Hunter’s death is ongoing. The Department for Children and Families is involved — as is typical in unexpected child deaths — and so is the Montpelier Police Department. Rory Thibault, the Washington County state’s attorney, declined comment while the investigation remains in progress.
In the meantime, Hunter’s family members — many of whom witnessed the tragedy — are grieving.
The night began as a small get-together among family. There was pizza; there were a lot of cousins. Hunter was there with his dad and two siblings, and his aunt brought her husband and six kids. A few other family members came too, for a total of about 17 people.
The group gathered at the pool of a family friend named Deane Hedges, who moved out of his Montpelier house several months ago. Hedges ran a water utility company there for decades, and the company helped supply East Montpelier with the area’s water.
But in December, Hedges listed his house for sale. On July 19, the Hedges’ house was empty, and Hunter’s family was free to use their pool.
Hunter was excited to see his cousins, Luman wrote in a text exchange with VTDigger. They ate the pizza and went swimming. They played water games. Everything was going well until the family realized they didn’t know where Hunter was.
As soon as they understood that Hunter might be in the water, Ryan and one of the boys’ cousins, Alvi Reed, sprung into action.
“I grabbed goggles from [a younger cousin], and I threw them to my 16-year-old cousin [Alvi],” Ryan said in a phone conversation Tuesday. “And I asked him if he could reassure me that my brother wasn’t in the bottom of the pool.”
Alvi swam back and forth under the water in rows, which was nine feet deep and almost completely opaque.
“The third time down I saw him and immediately grabbed him,” Alvi wrote in a text exchange. “My memory of it is really foggy after that but I remember reaching the side of the pool and screaming for help.”
As soon as they were out of the water, Alvi began doing CPR. Matthew Wiltse jumped in to assist; Alvi wrote that Matthew was yelling his son’s name. Then Luman called the police and the EMTs took over Hunter’s care.
“All the kids were crying and screaming,” Luman wrote. “The cops told us to calm down but you can’t calm children who are witnessing this.”
Meanwhile, Matthew Wiltse sent Perkins a phone alert letting her know what happened.
“I was in shock. I got in my car, where I work in Northfield, and I just drove as fast as I could to get to him,” Perkins said Tuesday. “People wouldn’t pull over, nothing. It felt like eternity. And then when I got there, the cops were just not letting me go there. And I’m like, I’m his mom. I need to see my baby.”
Perkins went to the hospital with her son, where they continued to do CPR for a while longer before officially declaring him dead.
She was upset, she said, that the EMTs made it sound as if there was hope after Hunter no longer had a pulse.
“Friday night, they [the police and EMTs] didn’t even talk to me about anything,” she said. “When I got there, they were like, oh, we’re working on him. We’re doing this. And apparently, he didn’t even have a pulse.”
The scene at the house that night was described by police as “somewhat chaotic,” and Vermont State Police and the Berlin Police Department were called in to assist Montpelier police.
Montpelier police Cpl. Matt Knisley, the supervisor on duty during the incident, said that he and his colleagues tried to help the fire department keep peace at the scene, and take down all of the relevant information for later.
“Anytime there’s an unintended or unexpected death, we are tasked with doing an investigation. And I don’t think that feels good, right after a tragedy, to have people digging in and needing to investigate,” Knisley said. “Unfortunately, it’s sort of the nature of the beast of what we’re tasked with.”
The Hedges declined to let the police search their property, which may have increased tension between the two parties.
Luman theorized that the Hedges didn’t give consent to the property search because “there was nothing in the house to find” — it was empty, left months ago. Perkins noted that the owners also wanted to protect Hunter’s family.
“He denied them, but he did it because of us,” she said. “We were grieving. And [Deane Hedges] is taking it rough. I mean, could you imagine being a homeowner and having a child pass away in your pool?”
The family has been in contact with the Department for Children and Families, which asked Perkins to take part in a “safety plan.” The department also told Perkins that nobody who was at the pool can be alone with her other children.
DCF did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
“[The DCF representative] said that they have to investigate when any child dies, which I understand,” Perkins said. “But I’m grieving. I just lost my son, and you’re going to come in my house and make me worry that my other two children are in jeopardy.”
Hunter’s death was not the only child drowning of the weekend. Less than 24 hours later, on Saturday afternoon, a 1-year-old girl fell into the White River in West Hartford. Her parents pulled her out and began performing CPR until the police arrived and the girl was taken to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. She died on Tuesday.
“When the heat rises, like it did, people tend to seek refuge in the water,” Brad Vail, the Hartford deputy chief of police, said. “Water can be dangerous. You’ve got to keep an eye on your children. You’ve got to take the necessary precautions when swimming and being in and around the water.”
But according to Hunter’s relatives, the family tried their best to protect him — and now, all they can do is mourn 4-year-old who loved everything from “Black Panther” to bird watching.
“He was just a ray of sunshine. He was always happy. I mean, he had his little boy moments where he would be upset, when he didn’t get his way,” Perkins said. “But even then — you say, where’s my smile, and he would just give you the brightest smile ever.”
Ryan, who was especially close with Hunter, added the day’s events were an accident that no one could have predicted. The adults watched the children as carefully as they could. Hunter was just fast, and a daredevil.
“It was just family getting together and having a good time, and then tragedy struck,” he said. “You could be anywhere. You could walk out your door the next morning and not return home. Anything can happen. This could happen to anybody.”
