The state Department of Corrections is asking a judge to consider placing an 80-year-old double murder suspect on home detention at the rehabilitation facility where he has been closely monitored by corrections staff for months.
The move would mean Michael Louise, who can’t stand or walk by himself, would be subject to electronic monitoring by an ankle bracelet and corrections staff would no longer be required to watch over him 24 hours a day.
That level of monitoring has cost the corrections department more than $220,000 as of Nov. 20, according to Haley Sommer, a corrections department spokesperson.
“Department of Corrections respectfully asks that the Court review this case for home detention feasibility at Defendant’s current location at the medical facility,” Vermont Assistant Attorney General Lauri A. Fisher wrote in a court filing last month.
Bennington Deputy State’s Attorney Jared Bianchi, the prosecutor, declined Thursday to comment on the matter. Dan Sedon, Louise’s defense attorney, could not be reached for comment.
A hearing was scheduled to be held on the request Monday in Rutland County Superior criminal court, but was rescheduled to Dec. 22 after bad weather left Louise’s attorney without power and internet service needed to attend the proceeding by video.
Louise, of Liverpool, New York, was charged in October 2022 with two counts of murder in the stabbing deaths of his wife’s parents, Catherine and George Peacock, in Danby in 1989. They were 73 and 76 years old.
Louise has pleaded not guilty to the charges and has been held in custody since his arrest for lack of bail. A judge last month reduced Louise’s $200,000 bail to $20,000, but even the smaller amount has not been posted.
Louise was moved to a medical facility in July when he became ill with an undisclosed medical condition. Attorneys in the case have said that Louise is currently receiving care at an acute rehabilitation facility at Mt. Ascutney Hospital in Windsor.
Through a spokesperson, the medical center declined comment Thursday.
Since bail has not been posted for Louise, he remains in the custody of the corrections department.
Sommer said the cost to the corrections department is not the primary reason that the department is seeking home detention for Louise. Instead, she said, his medical condition plays a role. Sedon, Louise’s attorney, said at a past hearing in the case that his client can’t stand on his own and uses a wheelchair.
Sommer said that a person facing a murder charge is not necessarily excluded from the home detention option, but a person held without bail would not be eligible.
“It’s ultimately up to the courts to determine that individual’s risk and whether they think home detention would be appropriate,” she said.
Sommer said she couldn’t say if Louise would be the first person charged with murder to be placed on home detention, adding that is something that is not tracked by the corrections department.
In charging Louise more than three decades after the Danby couple were fatally stabbed, prosecutors cited advances in DNA technology that had resulted in new evidence identifying Louise as the alleged killer.
That new evidence, according to court charging documents, was a blood speck from inside Louise’s car at the time of the murders that matched George Peacock’s blood.
Sedon, Louise’s attorney, is seeking to have the case against his client dismissed, contending that investigators were “overzealous” in their pursuit to pin the murders on Louise.
