BURLINGTON — The third of three people who admitted being present at the scene of a killing more than four years ago in Waterford was sentenced Friday to nine years in prison on charges connected to the killing.
However, a prosecutor said determining who actually fired the fatal shots that killed 37-year-old Michael Pimental has proven impossible due to the lies and “half-truths” of the many witnesses linked to the case.
John Welch, formerly of Woodsville, New Hampshire, had earlier pleaded guilty to federal charges of possession of a firearm as an unlawful drug user and accessory after the fact. The guilty pleas were part of an agreement reached with prosecutors.
The charges stemmed from the shooting death of Pimental at his home on Duck Pond Road in Waterford. Pimental’s body was found on Oct. 14, 2018, along the side of a dirt road in Concord, about 15 miles from his residence.
Several people had been arrested on charges linked to the case, but no one has been charged directly with murder for pulling the trigger.
That didn’t stop Judge Christina Reiss from telling Welch during Friday’s sentencing hearing in U.S. District Court in Burlington that she believed that he played a “significant” role in the slaying.
Welch was one of three people at the scene of the slaying, according to the prosecution and charging documents, joined there by Krystal Whitcomb and her father, Shawn Whitcomb.
Both Whitcombs had already reached plea agreements and had been sentenced in the case on firearms and drug related charges. Krystal Whitcomb, who was in a relationship with Pimental at the time of the killing, was sentenced to a little over 12 years, while her father was sentenced to 10 years.
Initially, the prosecution had considered pursuing the death penalty for the murder of Pimental, but later dropped that effort.
Robert Behrens, an attorney representing Welch, had argued during Friday’s hearing for a 45- month sentence for his client, which is roughly the amount of time he has served awaiting resolution of his case.
Behrens told the judge that his client suffered from substance use disorder as well as post- traumatic stress disorder from his time in the U.S. military serving in Iraq. He also noted that his client had cooperated with the prosecution.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Wendy Fuller, the prosecutor, pressed for a sentence of nine years for Welch, the longest sentence set out by the advisory federal sentencing guidelines in the case.
“John Welch admitted to being involved in important aspects of Michael Pimental’s homicide, and he admitted to concealing critical evidence of the murder,” Fuller wrote in a sentencing document filed ahead of the hearing.
“This conduct, along with Welch’s repeated deceits, made it impossible for Pimental’s family to get justice or have closure,” Fuller added. “It also made it impossible for the government to hold the correct people accountable for killing Pimental and as a result, the public has little protection from Pimental’s killer(s).”
In court, Fuller said the prosecution can’t tell who actually killed Pimental due to the conflicting stories from the defendants in the case.
“We have come to the conclusion we may never know,” the prosecutor said, adding, “It’s because they all had a role in his death … whether that was pulling the trigger I don’t know.”
Fuller said what was known was that Welch and the Whitcombs all admitted they were at the Duck Pond Road residence at the time of Pimental’s killing, but each told a different story about what happened there.
“It may have been one person — Welch, Krystal or Shawn — or it might have been a combination of people,” Fuller wrote in her sentencing filing.
“At bottom,” Fuller added, “Welch, Krystal and Shawn each had an important part to play in the homicide, and each are properly before this court for their roles in this case.”
At the time of his death, according to court records, Pimental and the Whitcombs were under investigation by the Vermont Drug Task Force for allegedly dealing large quantities of heroin and fentanyl in the Northeast Kingdom.
Pimental regularly abused Krystal Whitcomb, both verbally and physically, her attorney said during her sentencing hearing, adding that Pimental called her names and at times left her with black eyes and bruises.
At one point in the investigation, Shawn Whitcomb told investigators, “I did what I did to protect Krystal.”
Prosecutors also said Welch had several reasons for wanting Pimental dead, including clearing a drug debt.
On Friday, Reiss dismissed the defense argument that Welch deserved a lighter sentence than the nine years sought by the prosecution. The judge said that Welch had already been given a “substantial” break in the case with the agreement reached with the prosecution that allowed him to plead out to lesser charges than murder.
Welch, speaking during the hearing, told the judge that he knew and was friends with Pimental.
“I hung out with him many nights,” Welch said, adding that on the night of Pimental’s death, “I didn’t realize somebody was going to lose their life.”
A few months after Pimental’s killing, in February 2019, police received information about Welch offering to sell a firearm to a person in New Hampshire. As police investigated, they reported seeing Welch using a shovel to try to dig into the ground along a rural road in Bath, New Hampshire.
Police said they later returned to the location where Welch had been digging and found a backpack with a firearm inside it that was believed to be the murder weapon, and they arrested Welch.
According to a prosecution filing, Welch later told investigators he was digging in the ground because he heard that a gun might be buried there and that he was hoping to get “lucky.”
