Updated 6:12 p.m.
A day after Vermont State Police arrested two men in last week’s shooting death of a Barre man, court documents outlined how a proposed drug robbery allegedly turned into a homicide.
Game camera footage, a confidential informant’s whisperings, a blood-stained Nissan and a trail of Facebook messages all helped track down the two men who police say are behind one of eight murders in Vermont this month.
Kyle Bressette, 35, of Barre, was arrested Monday night on a charge of second-degree murder following the killing of 42-year old Jeffrey Caron of Barre.
Police also arrested Chris Relation, 52, of Berlin, on a charge of being an accessory after the fact to second-degree murder.
Caron’s body, which investigators said was partially burned, was found late last week in a wooded area in Plainfield. Police said the shooting “arose from a dispute involving drugs.”
An autopsy performed Sunday by the Vermont Chief Medical Examiner’s Office determined that Caron died from a gunshot wound to his torso and that the manner of death was a homicide.
“The arrests occurred after state police obtained search warrants Monday, Oct. 30, for a home on Turner Hill Road in Berlin where Bressette and Relation were staying,” state police said in a press release issued Tuesday morning. Police said it took “several hours” for a tactical services unit to take both men into custody.
Relation was arraigned in Washington County Superior criminal court in Barre Tuesday afternoon. The state is seeking a habitual offender designation for Relation, meaning his charge could carry a sentence of up to life in prison.
Bressette is scheduled for arraignment on Wednesday.
Both men remain incarcerated.
An affidavit written by Isaac Merriam, a state police detective sergeant, suggests that Relation and Caron planned to rob Bressette of money and drugs.
After hunters discovered Caron’s body near Gore Road in Plainfield on Friday, police interviewed Jonie Bresett, who Caron was dating and with whom he was arrested in a raid of Bresett’s apartment on Oct. 13, according to the affidavit.
Bresett told police that she had heard Caron and Relation discussing robbing Kyle Bressette on Oct. 24, and that Bressette had been living with Relation in the latter’s mobile home in Berlin, Merriam said.
In a Facebook message Relation sent to Caron later that day, Relation wrote, “I have a plan… I’m coming to you, we need to talk: I’ve had enough of this punk mktherfilcker (sic),” according to the affidavit. Relation later borrowed Bresett’s Nissan Rogue, Merriam said.
The day after Caron’s body was located, a confidential informant told police that Kyle Bressette had killed Caron. According to the affidavit, the informant told an officer that Bressette “killed (Caron) for the city guys” in exchange for heroin and crack cocaine, because Caron had allegedly previously stolen drugs.
After police obtained search warrants for Bresett’s car on Monday, they discovered a blood stain inside the vehicle, court documents show. The car also appeared to match a vehicle spotted by a game camera in the early morning hours of Oct. 25 near where Caron’s body was discovered.
That same day, authorities obtained a warrant to search Relation’s home in Berlin, where they discovered both Relation and Kyle Bressette, according to the affidavit.
Once taken into custody, Relation told police he’d allowed Bressette to move into his home in exchange for crack cocaine but grew tired of the arrangement. He and Caron devised a plan to remove Bressette from the house, taking his drugs and money in the process, according to the affidavit.
In Relation’s telling to police, he lured Bressette out of his home under the guise of a trip to Walmart, while Caron snuck inside to wait for their return. When Bressette and Relation arrived back at the mobile home, Caron confronted Bressette, Relation told police, and Bressette “obtained a handgun and shot Caron in the chest.”
According to the affidavit, Relation told police that Bressette turned the gun on him, telling him to “keep his mouth shut.” The two men then moved Caron’s body, and Bressette loaded it into the borrowed Nissan, according to the affidavit.
Bressette left the home and returned at three or four in the morning, Relation told police.
After his arrest, Bressette denied ever meeting or even knowing Caron existed, according to the affidavit.
According to police, Bressette has pending arrest warrants for “charges of aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer, aggravated operation of a vehicle without owner’s consent, operating a vehicle with a suspended license, failure to use an ignition interlock device, and petit larceny.”
The Plainfield case was one of two homicide arrests announced by state police Tuesday morning, following a spate of eight suspicious deaths that have been reported in October.
