Seth Brunell, who is charged with second-degree murder in the April 12 stabbing death of Fern Feather, a transgender woman, was ordered held without bail Monday.
Brunell pleaded not guilty in Feather’s killing last month. Before and during his arrest, Brunell told police that he had been defending himself after Feather made a sexual advance, according to police documents.
Police noted Brunell showed no signs of injury or struggle.
The case has led to an outpouring of sorrow across Vermont, especially in its LGBTQ+ communities.
Brunell has been held without bail in the Northeast Correctional Complex in St. Johnsbury since his arraignment last month. At Monday’s evidentiary hearing, Brunell’s attorney, David Sleigh, asked a judge to release Brunell into the custody of a friend.
“Mr. Brunell made a cogent and immediate and unambiguous claim of self-defense in this case,” Sleigh said, noting that argument “would be grounds for acquittal.”
But a prosecutor argued that Brunell poses too great a risk to release.
“The defendant is a violent person,” said Aliena Gerhard, the Lamoille County deputy state’s attorney, referencing a previous assault conviction. “His record shows that. He has a history of transience. He has a history of mental instability. And your honor, the charge here is homicide.”
Brunell pleaded no contest to a 2004 assault charge and was sentenced to 11-12 months in prison.
Last month, the Vermont State Police said they were looking into whether Brunell was under the false notion that Feather had previously been involved in a violent altercation with Brunell’s son.
Roughly a year prior, according to a police report, Feather had a violent encounter with another man who shared the same first name as Brunell’s son, although he was not related to Brunell.
“It is our understanding that neither party knew that it wasn’t his son at the time that they discussed it,” Gerhard said at Monday’s hearing. “So that evidence was not known to them.”
It’s not clear whether that mistaken connection was seen by prosecutors as a potential motivating factor, a sentiment shared by the judge in Monday’s hearing.
“I don’t know if this is somehow related to a possible motive,” Lamoille County Superior Court Judge Michael Harris said at the hearing. “It’s an odd thing.”
After a roughly hour-and-a-half long hearing, the judge granted the prosecutor’s request to keep Brunell held without bail.
“I think the strength of the evidence is great from what I see of it,” Harris said. “It appeared to be, if it was provoked assault, not adequately provoked for a deadly use of a knife.”
Last year, Gov. Phil Scott signed a law banning the LGBTQ+ “panic” defense, a legal strategy in which suspects justify violence by citing their victims’ sexual or gender identity.
No trial or future hearing has been scheduled yet, according to Sleigh.
