Vermont State Police are investigating the death of a 23-year-old Williamstown man who they say shot himself after fleeing a traffic stop and crashing into a tree.
Police said Jonathan Gilbert died of a single gunshot wound early Wednesday morning.
According to police, shortly before 2 a.m. on New Year’s Day, Trooper Benjamin Goodwin came upon a vehicle in the middle of Rood Pond Road in Williamstown.
Police said in a release that the driver of the vehicle, who has since been identified as Gilbert, appeared to be sleeping behind the wheel with the engine still running.
No one else was in the vehicle, according to police.
“The Trooper initiated contact,” the release stated, “at which time the operator awoken and sped off at a high rate of speed and subsequently went off the roadway and struck a tree.”
Fire and rescue personnel were called to the scene.
Gilbert, according to the release, was “conscious and alert,” after the crash, but pinned in the vehicle.
“Shortly thereafter,” the release stated, “the Trooper heard a single gunshot and discovered the operator deceased from a single gunshot wound.”
Maj. Dan Trudeau, head of the state police criminal division, said in text Thursday that he had no other information about the case other than what was included in the release.
The investigation remains ongoing.
Trudeau said that since it wasn’t an officer-involved shooting case, Goodwin, the trooper, had not been placed on any type of administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation.
Williamstown Fire Chief William Graham said Thursday’s Gilbert’s vehicle, a 2002 Toyota Tacoma pickup truck, crashed on Rood Pond Road into a maple tree about 10 feet down an embankment.
Rood Pond Road is a dirt road that runs between Route 64 and East Street.
The crash took place, the fire chief said, just before the Brookfield town line.
Graham said the vehicle, which was destroyed in the crash, did not catch on fire. “There was just steam coming from the engine,” he said.
Orange County State’s Attorney William Porter was out of the office Thursday and could not be reached for comment. Orange County Deputy State’s Attorney Dickson Corbett said Thursday he is aware of the incident and that state police were investigating.
Corbett said he wasn’t sure at this point what role the county prosecutor’s office would play in reviewing that investigation once it had been completed.
