A Wardsboro woman has pleaded not guilty to a charge of second-degree murder after an acquaintance was found dead this week from more than 100 “sharp force injuries,” according to state police.
Cara Rodrigues, 31, was arraigned at an online Vermont Superior Court hearing Wednesday, two days after authorities discovered the body of 42-year-old Guilford resident Emmy Bascom in Wardsboro, a rural Windham County town of fewer than 900 people.
In an affidavit, police said they encountered Rodrigues just after midnight on Monday when responding to a drug overdose in the parking lot of Brattleboro’s West River Marina. Finding that Rodrigues was not moving, they administered the emergency nasal spray Narcan and CPR before she came to and declined further help, according to the affidavit.
There, police also spoke with Bascom, who said she had known Rodrigues for several weeks and was driving her before Rodrigues snorted white powder from a plastic bag, court papers said.
Some 18 hours later on Monday, Vermont State Police received a report of a burglary some 30 miles north in Newfane, where one home’s security cameras pictured Rodrigues before they were disabled.
As troopers responded to the burglary, they learned of a dead body found in a logging area near Wardsboro’s Newfane Road. Discovering Bascom’s vehicle parked nearby, police searched neighboring houses and eventually found Rodrigues in a building that appeared to have been broken into.
Police collected evidence at the scene that included bloody clothing Rodrigues had changed out of, as well as statements from neighbors, they wrote in their affidavit.
In one interview, a Wardsboro man told police Rodrigues had banged on his door in the predawn hours of Monday and asked if she could borrow a wagon. Another man told authorities that Rodrigues had said she hit a deer and asked him “to help move a carcass,” according to the affidavit.
“Cara kept referring to the carcass as a she,” police said the latter man told them.
When the men went to look for the wagon, they found Bascom’s vehicle, which had blood on the seat, and then her body, authorities said.
Police eventually located the wagon, which “appears to contain a red/brown stain consistent with the appearance of blood,” the affidavit said.
Police jailed Rodrigues, who questioned her own mental health and told them, “I don’t know how I can be held responsible of anything if I was being drugged,” according to court papers.
Rodrigues has one prior felony conviction and 27 prior misdemeanor convictions, authorities said. Her record includes charges of drunken driving and possession of heroin and fentanyl, according to court filings.
Rodrigues was being held without bail at Springfield’s Southern State Correctional Facility while awaiting her next hearing. If convicted, she faces a sentence of 20 years to life in prison.
Rodrigues also will face other charges, including two counts of burglary and an attempt to escape while being held at state police headquarters in Westminster, authorities said.
