BURLINGTON — Aita Gurung, the man accused of killing his wife and attempting to kill his mother-in-law in Burlington in 2017, has been moved to prison. He had previously been held at a mental health facility.
Attorney General TJ Donovan refiled charges against Gurung last week after State’s Attorney Sarah George dismissed the charges when she determined she would be unable to counter Gurung’s insanity defense.
Gurung was moved to Northwest Correctional Facility from the Middlesex Therapeutic Community Residence on Sept. 13 and will remain there pending a Sept. 24 hearing. Gurung was back in court Wednesday for a bail hearing, which was adjourned without a ruling after a translator recused himself from the case for ethical reasons.
Gurung allegedly killed his wife, Yogeswari Khadka, 32, and seriously injured his mother-in-law, Thulsa Rimal, on Oct. 12, 2017, at their residence in the Old North End of Burlington. He had been released from the University of Vermont Medical Center earlier that day after a week-long stay for a mental health evaluation.
Sandra Lee, Gurung’s attorney, is requesting that Gurung be allowed to return to the Middlesex mental health facility to continue his treatment with the condition that he return to court if the Department of Mental Health determines he is well enough to be released.
“It’s the humane thing to do, under the circumstances and the manner in which this case has been brought,” Lee said. “Clearly being in jail is different from being in a treatment facility run by the Department of Mental Health.”
The Attorney General’s Office is seeking to keep Gurung in prison. There is overwhelming evidence of Gurung’s responsibility for the slaying, according to assistant attorney general John Waszak.
“We’re making sure that we’re treating Mr. Gurung with respect, making sure he receives the medical care that he’s entitled to, but at the same time, making sure that the rule of law is followed, and the victims voices are heard,” Donovan said Friday.
The matter was expected to be decided at Wednesday’s bail hearing, but translator Negendra Khatiwada recused himself after determining he had an ethical conflict. Gurung speaks Nepali and requires the court’s proceedings be translated.
“He’s a member of the community,” Lee said. “I imagine [translators] have their various rules they have to follow and then disclose when they run into issues, so he did.”
The Department of Mental Health has agreed to keep Gurung’s bed at the Middlesex facility open for him until his longer-term placement is determined Sept. 24. Judge Samuel Hoar said he would be making a ruling the day of the hearing.
George dismissed the charges against Gurung after two experts, one appointed by the court and one hired by the state, ruled that he was insane at the time of the attack. Donovan reviewed the case and two others after Governor Phil Scott requested that he do so.
Gurung had a psychological evaluation Sept. 16 at the Northwest Correctional Facility to determine if he required hospitalization at the Vermont Psychiatric Care Hospital in Berlin, which would have kept him out of prison.
Gurung had been held at the Berlin facility from the day after his arrest in October 2017 until he was discharged to Middlesex, a lower level of care but still a secure, locked facility, on Sept. 3.
After his arrest, Gurung was ordered to the Berlin facility and diagnosed with an “unspecified psychotic disorder, PTSD and alcohol use disorder (in remission in a controlled setting).” He was found not to meet the level for acute hospital level care on Dec. 24, 2017, physician Alisson Richards wrote in her Sept. 16 evaluation.
“However, given the complexities of his legal charges and lack of movement in the criminal court systems, his team felt he required hospitalization until resolution of his charges,” Richards wrote.
Gurung was moved to the lower level of care at the Middlesex earlier this month due to the continued lack of need for the level of care provided by the Berlin facility and the apparent resolution of the charges against him, Richards wrote. But he was arrested and moved to prison after Donovan refiled charges last week.
Gurung told Richards that he was “distressed” and that his condition had gotten a little worse since his transition to prison. He told Richards he had not received his medication in prison.
“It is clear that this is stressful to him and causing him to feel more distressed,” Richards wrote.
Gurung told Richards that he had suicidal thoughts but no current plan to harm himself or others.
Richards wrote that Gurung had been stabilized for 18 months before being discharged to an appropriate level of care in Middlesex. Gurung’s psychosis was treated and his psychiatric symptoms were resolved during his care, but he has continued to have persistent suicidal ideation, she wrote.
Richards determined that Gurung did not need the acute level of care offered at the Berlin facility or need acute psychiatric hospitalization.
“Mr. Gurung is not an acute or current threat to self, a threat to others or impaired in his functioning as a result of a mental illness that cannot be managed at a lower level or less restrictive level of care,” Richards wrote.
However, Richards wrote that Gurung “could be served at a less restrictive setting” such as the Middlesex facility. Gurung continues to have suicidal thoughts about the killing of his wife and lack of contact with his daughter.
An attorney general filing charges dismissed by a state’s attorney is extremely rare but not unprecedented.
In 1979, the Vermont Supreme Court ruled that the attorney general has the authority to file charges when a state’s attorney declines to prosecute after the Windsor County state’s attorney declined to prosecute a judge who was arrested for a DUI.
Lee said after Friday’s hearing that she believed Donovan’s decision to prosecute was political.
“This case, after being dismissed by the state of Vermont back in May, is now coming back with nothing different — same affidavit, same charges,” Lee said. “So I honestly don’t understand the decision other than politics.”
Donovan dismissed Lee’s assertion that re-filing charges was a political move and said he had spoken to the victim’s family, who had asked him to bring justice to their family.
“You’re talking about a murder,” he said.
Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the year in which Gurung is accused of having committed murder.
