An alleged carjacking in Warren prompted dozens of residents to call local prosecutors and police asking for more to be done to keep the town safe, after the suspect was released shortly after the incident.
Wade Glenn pleaded not guilty to charges of larceny, a felony, and operation of a motor vehicle without the owner’s consent, a misdemeanor in criminal court in Washington County on Sept. 3.
The charges stem from an incident on Aug. 30, when Mel Hall said she was driving on Stony Hill Road in Warren, and a man walking up the road, later identified as Glenn, flagged her down for help, looking frantic.
“I honestly felt bad for him,” Hall said. “I stopped and rolled down my window, like ‘Are you OK? What’s up?’ and he was just panicking, ‘Take me to the nearest store, please I have to get to the nearest store.’”
Hall said she was still trying to figure out what was happening and whether the man was safe, when he suddenly opened the back door of her car and climbed in.
“I was just like, ‘What the hell?’” she said.
He almost immediately tried to get into her front seat, she said, but she reached out her arm, stopping him. She asked his name, to which he replied “Wade,” though Hall initially thought this was a lie, since he paused for so long before saying it.
“Turns out it was true,” she said.
He then started crawling into the front seat for the second time, this time pushing past Hall’s arm, and ignoring her protests, she said. Then, according to Hall, Glenn started to move from the passenger seat into the driver’s seat, where she was sitting, and she fled.
“I jumped out and started screaming for help,” Hall said. “But I was on a dirt road, there was no one there, no cars.”
At that point, Glenn drove off, according to Hall, who said she then ran to the nearest house and called 911. She said at first, the police didn’t seem too concerned, thinking that she was just reporting a stolen car, rather than a carjacking.
The incident took place at the same time that state offices in Montpelier were put on lockdown following a report of a person carrying a firearm into the building. State’s Attorney Rory Thibault said that caused law enforcement from across the county to be largely concentrated in that area, unable to respond on site to Hall’s 911 call.
“Those were some fairly unusual circumstances,” Thibault said in an interview.
When Hall got home, she and her friend realized that she had left her phone in her car, and could probably use the Find My Friends app to track it.
“Bam! There he was in Brandon, driving around,” Hall said.
They called the police, and directed them to the site of her car, where law enforcement apprehended Glenn, arresting him on site. He was cited on a misdemeanor offense of operating a vehicle without the owner’s consent, and set to appear in criminal court in Washington County four days later, which he did. Police did not take a mugshot or his fingerprints, because it was a misdemeanor charge, according to Thibault.
But when Hall learned that Glenn had been released after the arrest, with no mugshot or fingerprints taken, she wrote about the incident on Front Porch Forum, in the hopes that her neighbors could avoid having the same thing happen to them.
“I probably got 100 emails that night,” Hall said, from people who read her post and wanted to say they were glad she was safe, or to know “how the heck did they just let him go?” or even just to find out what the man looked like (since describing him or including his name is against Front Porch Forum rules).
Glenn appeared in court to answer to the charges, and after pleading not guilty, he was released on bond and with strict conditions, including a restraining order against the woman whose car was allegedly stolen, and a 24-hour curfew at his residence, except for legal, medical and work purposes.
Glenn also was given seven business days to come in and have his mugshot taken. Thibault said as of Wednesday afternoon, the seventh day, Glenn had not done so.
Attempts by VTDigger to reach Glenn by phone were unsuccessful, and his attorney, Maggie Vincent, declined to comment on the case.
Thibault put out a press release in response to all the calls his office was getting about the case, explaining why Glenn was released, and how they were handling the case. Glenn was released on $5,000 appearance bond, meaning that if he does not show up for court, he will be on the hook for that amount.
“In this case, while the alleged behavior of Mr. Glenn is deeply alarming, and was incredibly frightening to the victim, his release on an unsecured appearance bond and the imposition of conditions of release is consistent with the law of the State of Vermont,” Thibault wrote.
He explained that the court assessed Glenn’s risk of flight and public safety, and in both cases, determined that he should be released. Glenn’s ties through work and housing to Vermont made him not be considered a flight risk, Thibault wrote. According to court records, Glenn lives in Shelburne and works in Burlington at a temp agency. And though he had prior offenses in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, those crimes were 13 years ago, Thibault wrote. He also noted that some of the crimes that Glenn had been charged with were not crimes that he was ultimately convicted of.
“We hear so little from the public about some of these other cases,” Thibault said in an interview. “Sometimes it’s tough to predict what will strike a nerve. Clearly, this case did.”
He said Warren is clearly a tight knit community that people think of as being pretty safe, so it shook them a little bit to hear something like this. But he said it’s important to him that people know even though his office is constrained by laws about when suspects can be released, the prosecutors are doing everything they can in the case.
“Nothing could be further from the truth than the idea that we don’t take this seriously or handle cases with victims seriously,” Thibault said.
But to Hall, that just means that maybe Vermont needs to change its laws, so people like Thibault can enforce them.
“In other states, there’s a minimum 15-year sentence if you [carjack],” Hall said. “I’m not sure why Vermont is so lenient on the whole topic.”
Hall said her niece was one of the teenagers killed on Interstate 89 by Steven Bourgoin in 2016, so the idea of what constitutes justice has been something she’s been thinking about a lot in recent months. She said for both Bourgoin and Glenn, she doesn’t think sitting behind bars is any help.
“I guess I think he should do some pretty intense community service and maybe some classes on human interaction and empathy training,” Hall said. “People who do this stuff need help and education and purpose in life.”
As for herself, she said the whole experience has been exhausting, and she’s not totally sure where it’s left her.
“I’m just sad that I’ll never be able to comfortably pull over and ask if someone needs help again without being scared,” she said. “That sucks.”