BURLINGTON — A judge has sentenced a Burlington man to serve at least 27 years in jail for killing his wife and seriously injuring her mother with a meat cleaver in 2017.
Judge John Pacht handed down the sentence for 40-year-old Aita Gurung on Wednesday afternoon following a two-day hearing in Chittenden County Superior criminal court in Burlington.
Gurung was convicted in November 2022 of first-degree murder in the death of his 32-year-old wife, Yogeswari Khadka, at their home in Burlington on Oct. 12, 2017. Gurung was also found guilty of attempted second-degree murder for seriously injuring his mother-in-law, Thulsa Rimal, in the same attack.
Pacht sentenced Gurung on the two charges to a total sentence of 35 years to life, with 27 years to serve and the remainder suspended on probation. Gurung was given credit for more than six years he has been held in custody or in a psychiatric care facility under involuntary hospitalization since his arrest.
The minimum prison term of the sentence was almost three times what the defense had proposed and eight years fewer than the prosecution had sought.
Before handing down the sentence, the judge spoke for roughly 45 minutes, at times becoming emotional and having to stop briefly before continuing on.
He called the case “extremely” complex, dealing with many issues, including the intersection of the criminal justice and mental health care systems in Vermont.
Pacht talked of the “significant tension” between Gurung’s “serious mental issues” and violent criminal conduct.
“The nature of this offense-conduct is horrific,” Pacht said. “The damage done to the surviving family members can’t be measured” in the years attached to a prison sentence.
The judge said that in going over the case he spent the most time reviewing a photo of Khadka.
“When looking at this picture I see this magnificent young woman, strong, focused, serene, dedicated,” Pacht said.
Outside the courtroom following the sentencing, Sandra Lee, an attorney for Gurung, also spoke emotionally, telling reporters, “On Mr. Gurung’s behalf he’d like to convey that he appreciates the court considering his mental health issues, he recognizes the horrific nature of his offenses and he accepts the judge’s sentence.”
Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark, whose office prosecuted the case, released a statement following the sentencing thanking the law enforcement agencies and jurors for their “thoughtfulness” through the trial.
“Yogeswari was a brave, hardworking mother who immigrated to the United States in hopes of building a brighter future for her family,” Clark stated.
“Her voice and the voice of her mother, Tulasa, who tried to save her, deserved to be heard,” the attorney general added. “We are grateful that Tulasa and members of her family were able to share with the Court the impact that these tragic acts of domestic violence had and continue to have on their lives.”
At trial last year, Gurung’s attorneys unsuccessfully raised an insanity defense. The prosecution maintained it was a case of domestic violence, saying Gurung was fueled by anger when his wife would not get him a beer. Following the four-week trial, the jury deliberated for about 24 hours before returning the guilty verdicts.
On Tuesday, William David Kidney, another attorney for Gurung, read a letter to the judge from Gurung, who is Bhutanese. A Nepali interpreter translated the court proceedings for Gurung.
“Your honor, six years ago I did a terrible thing and killed my lovely wife and hurt my mother-in-law,” Kidney said, reading from the letter. “I still see Yogeswari in my dreams and every day, every hour, every minute I feel incredible pain, guilt and remorse for what I did to her.”
Kidney added from the letter, “She did not deserve to die this terrible death. My mother-in-law did not deserve to be hurt and witness this terrible death.”
Gurung also spoke to the judge, foregoing the translator and telling the judge in English that he was sorry for his actions.
Standing in court Tuesday, Gurung offered his first public comments in the case, telling the judge he wasn’t in his “right mind” and was hearing voices when the “accident” occurred.
“I miss her every day of my life,” Gurung said of his late wife.
He added that he understood the harm he caused and the impact his actions had on others, including his mother-in-law and other family members.
“I hope you forgive me,” he said, “but I understand if you cannot.”
Rimal, his mother-in-law, was described during the sentencing hearing as now disabled as a result of the knife attack. She told the judge Tuesday via video and speaking through a Nepali translator about how her life has changed as a result of her injuries and the loss of her daughter.
“No matter what, he should get the hardest punishment,” she told the judge.
The daughter of Yogeswari Khadka and Gurung, identified only by the initials “S.R.,” was among other family members who also provided victim impact statements Tuesday.
“As long as I can remember, you weren’t there for me,” she told Gurung via video, adding, “You were busy doing your own thing and you didn’t seem to care about our family.”
S.R. said she has had to deal with the trauma of losing her mother and knowing her father was responsible for her death.
“To this day I am deeply hurt,” she said, adding as she spoke directly to Gurung, “It was your actions but I have had the consequences.”
Gurung and Khadka met in a refugee resettlement camp in Nepal when they were children, according to testimony in the case, and spent more than two decades there before eventually immigrating to Burlington in 2015.
During the trial, the prosecution argued Gurung had a history of abusing alcohol and physically assaulting his wife. The defense countered that Gurung was not guilty by reason of insanity. His lawyers presented evidence to the jury that Gurung had been released from the University of Vermont Medical Center less than two hours before carrying out the attack.
Following the verdict — and in an unusual move — nine of the 12 jurors signed a letter to the judge stating that it was their “unanimous opinion” that his mental disease “significantly influenced” the events leading to the charges against him.
Assistant Attorney General Rose Kennedy, who prosecuted the case along with Assistant Attorney General Sophie Stratton, said that throughout court proceedings in the case, Yogeswari Khadka had “largely been ignored.”
“Today, we speak for her,” Kennedy said in her more than hourlong sentencing argument Tuesday.
The prosecutor described Khadka as a young mother, an immigrant, a person of color, strong, courageous, caring and optimistic. Kennedy said the case, at its core, was about domestic violence.
“Defendant chose to inflict horror on his wife and her mother that day,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy asked the judge to impose a sentence of 35 years to life on the first-degree murder conviction, and a 20-year-to-life sentence on the attempted second-degree murder conviction, with the sentences to be served concurrently, meaning served at the same time.
“We appreciate that the defendant is a person with severe mental disease and that you are asked to take that into consideration,” Kennedy told the judge.
“We believe we have,” Kennedy said, adding that the prosecution was seeking “the statutory minimums on these convictions and we are asking that these sentences run concurrently with each other. We believe running these sentences concurrently is a big concession.”
Lee, who represented Gurung along with Kidney, asked the judge to impose on the first-degree murder conviction a sentence of 35 years to life, all suspended on probation except 10 years.
The defense attorney also asked for a sentence on the attempted second-degree murder conviction of 20 years to life, all suspended on probation except 10 years, with the same credit as the other sentence.
The probation, Lee said, would include strict conditions, including that Gurung comply with his mental health treatment regimen.
The sentences on the two convictions, Lee proposed to the judge, would run concurrently.
“At no time has he ever denied or not taken responsibility for the killing of his wife or the injury to his mother-in-law,” Lee said of Gurung in court Tuesday during her roughly 45-minute sentencing argument to the judge.
“The credible and reliable evidence in this case,” Lee added, “is that Mr. Gurung at the time of his offenses suffered from an extremely severe psychotic disorder.”
Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George decided in 2019 to drop charges against Gurung as well as two other defendants in high-profile cases when she said she could not rebut insanity defenses based on expert opinions.
Gov. Phil Scott called on then-Vermont Attorney General TJ Donovan to review the case, and the state’s top prosecutor refiled charges in all three cases that had been dismissed, including the case against Gurung.
