The killing of a transgender woman in Morristown drew outrage and condemnation across Vermont on Wednesday.
Hinesburg resident Fern Feather, 29, was found stabbed to death along a Morristown road on Tuesday morning, according to Vermont State Police. Feather’s death prompted an outpouring of grief and anger from top state officials and on social media.
House Speaker Rep. Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington, said Feather was “tragically taken from this world too soon, like so many other transgender people who are targeted in bias driven attacks.”
“We absolutely need to continue to take steps to make Vermont a more equitable place and be clear that hate has no place in our state,” Krowinski said in a statement Wednesday afternoon.
Without naming Feather, Gov. Phil Scott condemned the “disturbing hostility towards the transgender community” across the U.S.
“Exploiting fear and targeting divisive rhetoric at people who are just trying to be who they are is hateful and can lead to violence,” Scott said in a statement Wednesday evening. “To Vermonters in the LGBTQA+ community, I want you to know we stand with you and support you but know we have more work to do.”
At a debate hosted by VTDigger Wednesday evening, two candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives — state Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale, D-Chittenden, and state Senate President Pro Tempore Becca Balint, D-Windham — condemned the killing.
“We have lost a trans woman in Vermont, and I am holding our trans community in my heart,” Ram Hinsdale said.
“As we look across the nation, LGBTQ kids and adults are under siege and it touches me personally,” said Balint, who is gay.
The Pride Center of Vermont, a nonprofit LGBTQ+ advocacy group, said its leaders were “heartbroken by the loss of one of our community members.”
“Fern brought such joy to so many who were honored to know them and we grieve the loss of their light in this world,” the organization wrote on Facebook.
Feather wrote about identifying as a trans woman in a public Facebook post in March. It was not immediately clear which pronouns Feather used.
Some earlier news articles, citing an initial press release from the Vermont State Police that used Feather’s previous name, had misstated Feather’s gender.
Prosecutors have charged Seth Brunell, 43, with second-degree murder in Feather’s death.
Brunell, who was not known to have a fixed address, had been spending time with Feather before the killing, state police said.
Roughly two hours before Feather’s body was found, officers with the Lamoille County Sheriff’s Department had encountered the pair in a car together in the parking lot of the Lamoille North Supervisory Union.
“Deputies checked on (Feather and Brunell) and waited for them to leave the parking lot,” state police said in a Tuesday night press release.
Upon his arrest, Brunell told police that he had been defending himself after Feather “made a sexual advance and attacked him,” according to a Vermont State Police press release.
“Investigators observed no injuries or evidence of a struggle or an assault on Brunell,” state police said.
Last year, Scott signed a law banning the so-called LGBTQ “panic” defense, a legal tactic in which defendants attempt to excuse violence by referencing their victims’ sexual orientation or gender identity.
That law specifically pertains to “circumstances in which the victim made a nonforcible, noncriminal romantic or sexual advance toward the defendant.”
An arraignment scheduled for Brunell on Wednesday was delayed until Thursday after his lawyer asked for a 24-hour postponement. A police affidavit in support of the murder charge has not yet been made public.
