Updated at 6:48 p.m.
A man accused of killing his wife’s parents in Danby 33 years ago is being investigated in connection with several unsolved homicides in upstate New York, a Vermont prosecutor said in court Friday.
Deputy State’s Attorney Jared Bianchi made the statement during a request to keep Michael Louise, 79, detained without bail after the New York man pleaded not guilty to twin charges of second-degree murder.
“I can disclose to the court that Mr. Louise is also a person of interest being investigated in connection with several unsolved homicides in the upstate New York area,” Bianchi said. He didn’t provide additional information.
Louise is currently charged with fatally stabbing his parents-in-law, George and Catherine Peacock, at their home in Danby in September 1989. He was 76 and she was 73. Each offense carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.
Public defender Sean Milligan entered not guilty pleas on Louise’s behalf in Rutland Superior criminal court, while Louise listened via video link from Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield. The hearing happened two days after Louise was extradited to Vermont from New York, where he is a resident of the Syracuse area.
In arguing to hold Louise without the opportunity to post bail, Bianchi also said his criminal record includes a “violent sexual assault of a young child.”
Court documents in the murder case indicate Louise had served jail time after confessing to sexually assaulting a 4-year-old girl in Rhode Island in 1966 — a crime he claimed to have committed without remembering.
Judge Cortland Corsones ordered that Louise’s detention status be maintained until the court has assessed whether he should be locked up while awaiting trial. Louise’s attorney didn’t challenge the prosecution’s preliminary request to hold him without bail.
Meanwhile, the court prohibited him from discussing the case with his wife, Penelope Louise, one of the Peacocks’ three daughters.
Louise has always been the prime suspect in the killing of the elderly couple, court documents show, but crucial evidence didn’t emerge until recent years. There were no signs of forced entry into their house, and no valuables were taken, so Vermont State Police investigators theorized from the outset that a family member could’ve been involved in the crime.
State police said they cracked the cold case during a second round of DNA testing in 2020, when laboratory analysis matched a spot of blood found inside Louise’s car in 1989 to that of George Peacock. Previous analysis, in 2000, apparently returned inconclusive results as DNA testing technology was still emerging at that time.
Louise was arrested at his home in Liverpool on Oct. 13, before being taken to Vermont.
In a 28-page statement of probable cause for Louise’s charges, state police Detective Sgt. Samuel Truex said circumstantial evidence also pointed to him as the attacker and laid out other details in the case.
According to Truex’s affidavit, the circumstantial evidence includes Louise’s earlier statement that he’d decided on a whim to make the nearly 400-mile round trip from Syracuse to Danby on the day of the murder to pick up some particle boards he’d stored with the Peacocks. But he told authorities that after he’d driven more than halfway to Danby, he decided to turn around and head home.
This contradicted the story that Louise’s niece, Patricia Gannon, told investigators she heard from him in 1989. In the presence of his wife, daughter and Gannon, Louise reportedly said he remembered “getting into Vermont” that day but what followed was blank or a blackout.
Gannon said these mirrored the terms she later learned her uncle used to explain how he couldn’t remember sexually assaulting the child. Gannon added that Louise normally is able to recall tiny details of his daily routines.
When asked by police whether he might have blacked out, driven to Danby and killed the Peacocks, Louise said he’d “thought about that,” but ultimately denied the accusation, the affidavit shows.
The document also includes 1989 statements from Louise’s wife, nicknamed Penny, who talked about his driving habits. She’d said he would often go for rides by himself, be gone for the day and sometimes would be late picking her up from work. She said he would go for rides to relax from work — he had a job at Hertz and a newspaper route — and she never asked where he went or what he did.
A former girlfriend, Sandra Pangaro, also said Louise liked to go for rides by himself, especially when it rained, and would be gone for up to two days at a time.
She said that upon returning home from some of those trips, Louise “would be exhausted and would then sleep all the next day,” the affidavit reads. At times, he would “get up in the middle of the night to go for a ride if it began raining.”
State police spokesperson Adam Silverman said the double-murder case is believed to be the oldest cold case in which the law enforcement agency has brought charges.
He said two years passed between the time DNA testing found George Peacock’s blood on Louise’s car floor mat and the filing of Louise’s criminal charges this month, because police had to conduct additional work, such as follow-up interviews and evidence review.
Louise is expected to return to court for a weight of the evidence hearing within the next couple of weeks.
The case is being prosecuted in Rutland County but being handled by the Bennington County State’s Attorney’s Office due to staffing shortages in the Rutland prosecutor’s office.
Correction: An earlier version of this story listed an incorrect date for Louise’s arrest.