Editor’s Note: Vermont State Police reported on Sept. 16 that they had arrested the wrong man in an attack on a construction worker in Rockingham two days earlier. Ryan Avery, 45, was cleared of all charges after video surveillance showed him in a different location at the time of the attack.
Updated at 9:15 p.m.
After a daylong search, police said they had located a person who had “struck and slashed” a member of a construction crew working on Interstate 91 in Rockingham on Wednesday morning before fleeing into the woods.
Brattleboro police officers took into custody Ryan Avery, 45, who has no fixed address, on Wednesday night, according to a Vermont State Police press release.
The attack took place around 9:30 a.m Wednesday on Interstate 91 southbound near the Rockingham exit, police said in an earlier press release. Police had warned the public that the suspect was dangerous.
The injured crew member, Ramiro Muro, 24, of Asheville, North Carolina, was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and later released, according to state police spokesperson Adam Silverman.
Muro works for Ameritech Slope Constructors and went into the woods near the construction site when he was attacked from behind by an unknown man, who police later identified as Avery, police said.
Avery allegedly put Muro in a chokehold, broke a glass bottle and used a shard to slash Muro, police said.
State police did not indicate on Wednesday night whether Avery had been charged, but said their investigation “into this morning’s aggravated assault remains active and ongoing.”
