Police have identified the human remains that washed up from the Winooski River in Colchester in July as Keith Gaston, who was 32 when he went missing in 2019.
Gaston was a suspect in the death of his fiancee Hannah Keyes, 28, in November 2019, and was believed to have died by suicidal drowning in the river during floods that month.
Peter Hull, the interim police chief in Colchester, told VTDigger his department released the information last week after notifying Gaston’s family.
Gaston and Keyes last lived in Winooski with their two children.
Amid historic flooding this summer, Colchester Police received a call about skeletal remains floating off Colchester Point around 3:25 p.m. on July 16. Colchester Police Marine Patrol responded to recover the remains and bring them to the medical examiner’s office.
Dental records were non-conclusive, Hull said, but DNA testing confirmed Gaston’s identity.
Hull said police suspect the body had for years been caught up in the debris in or on the side of the Winooski River, about two miles from Colchester Point, and was dislodged by the massive rainfall.
The medical report lists Gaston’s cause of death as drowning, Hull said. No foul play is suspected.
Keyes, originally from Bennington, was found dead at the couple’s Winooski apartment on Nov. 2, 2019, after police performed a wellness check when she didn’t turn up at work, according to Winooski Police Lt. Justin Huizenga.
She was assaulted by an unknown person and her cause of death is listed as “compression of neck and chest,” according to a death certificate reviewed by VTDigger.
After police found Gaston’s parked car, they used surveillance videos from Nov. 1, 2019, to track that he had walked to Winooski Falls Way and jumped into the Winooski River, which was swollen and rough after flooding.
“We believed at the time that he did intentionally jump in the river and that there was no way for him to survive that jump,” Huizenga said.
Winooski and Colchester police departments searched the area for days via rescue teams boat and drone. “Just based on how the volume of water was flowing through the city at the time, how swollen the Winooski River was, we knew that we had a pretty short window of time to find his body,” Huizenga said.