More than three months after the body of Michele Demar was found off a road in the small Orange County town of Washington, the state’s Chief Medical Examiner’s Office has ruled her death a suicide, Vermont State Police said Monday.
The death of the 33-year-old Northfield resident, and the time it took to determine its manner, had prompted questions among community members and at least one family member.
Those concerns grew after Oct. 25, when hunters found the body of another woman, 23-year-old Tanairy “Tanya” Velazquez Estrada, in a remote location off the same road about three miles away.
Adam Silverman, a state police spokesperson, said in an email that the medical examiner’s office informed state police of its findings in Demar’s death late Friday afternoon.
The state police victim services unit spoke with Demar’s family Monday before police issued the press release, Silverman said. State police are continuing to investigate Demar’s death, according to the release, but it is not considered suspicious.
Shortly after Demar’s death, police announced that she had died by hanging on Aug. 3 where Poor Farm Road meets Route 110 in Washington, and that it was not considered suspicious. They said at the time that the manner of death would remain pending until the medical examiner’s ruling.
The cause and manner of death of Velazquez Estrada, who state police said had most recently been living in Barre, remains pending as toxicology tests are expected to take from “several weeks to several months,” according to state police Monday.
Velazquez Estrada, according to state police, had been reported missing by her mother to police in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, on the same day the hunters found her body in Washington.
If you are in crisis or need help for someone else, dial 988 for the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (formerly known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline) or text VT to 741741 for the Crisis Text Line.
