Updated 6:41 p.m.
Vermont State Police say they do not believe that two fatal shootings in the Northeast Kingdom over a two-day span are related.
Maj. Dan Trudeau, head of the state police’s criminal division, said during a Monday afternoon press briefing that the two deaths, one in Newport Town on Saturday evening and another in Wheelock early Monday morning, don’t appear to be connected.
“I know probably everybody’s curious if they are related incidents,” Trudeau said to reporters, adding, “There’s been no evidence to indicate to us that they are related.”
Wheelock and Newport Town are about 30 miles apart.
Police late Monday night identified Wilmer Rodriguez, 27, of Hartford, Connecticut, as the man killed Saturday evening in Newport Town. An autopsy completed Monday determined that the cause of Rodriguez’s death was multiple gunshot wounds and that the manner of death was a homicide, a release from state police stated.
Police said troopers responded to a call at about 6:45 p.m. Saturday for a report of a man shot in a Farrar Road home and at the scene found a man, later identified as Rodriguez, dead inside.
Trudeau, speaking at Monday’s press briefing, said investigators believe the fatal shooting may be drug-related and that Rodrigues was targeted. No one was in custody as of Monday, according to Trudeau, and the investigation remains ongoing.
In the Wheelock case, Trudeau said police responded to an emergency call around 6 a.m. Monday from a woman reporting that a man had been shot at a home on Route 16. Emergency responders pronounced the man dead at the scene.
On Tuesday, police identified the victim in that incident as 27-year-old Gunnar Watson, and said that he lived at the home where the shooting occurred. An autopsy conducted on Tuesday revealed that Watson died of a gunshot wound to the torso.
Trudeau said that the investigation so far has indicated the suspicious death in Wheelock “was an isolated incident.” No one is in custody and the investigation is continuing.
Trudeau released few other details into the investigations of both deaths. He did say they are not believed to be related to the unsolved homicide of 77-year-old Honoree Fleming, who was fatally shot on the afternoon of Oct. 5 on a rail trail in Castleton, not far from the Vermont State University Castleton campus.
