After a lengthy investigation, police issued a warrant this week for a suspect in the alleged murder of a Glover man, who died more than four years ago following a low-speed car crash in Barton.
Brownswell Cedano, 29, who is serving time in a federal prison in Pennsylvania for dealing drugs in Rutland, is expected to be brought to Vermont to face the second-degree murder charge in the November 2019 death of 37-year-old Richard Poginy.
The arrest warrant for Cedano comes after years of investigation that included “numerous” interviews with witnesses, according to a Vermont State Police press release issued Wednesday.
Cedano, a resident of Hartford, Connecticut, at the time, had assaulted and repeatedly struck Poginy outside a Barton home on Nov. 2, 2019, and then fled the scene, according to state police.
Poginy then drove away from the home and crashed his vehicle a short distance away, while driving at a low speed, the release stated.
Authorities did not initially report Poginy’s death as a homicide.
A press release issued by state police following the 2019 crash stated it “is believed” Poginy “sustained an unknown medical event prior to leaving the roadway.”
Poginy died a week later at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire, according to state police.
“Investigators determined that his significant injuries were inconsistent with a vehicle crash,” the release issued Wednesday stated. “New Hampshire’s chief medical examiner performed an autopsy and ruled the cause of Poginy’s death was ‘complications of blunt impact head injuries,’ and the manner of death was a homicide.”
Cedano is currently an inmate at Federal Correctional Institution Schuylkill in Minersville, Pennsylvania, having been sentenced in November 2022 to seven years in federal prison following a conviction for drug distribution in Rutland, according to the release.
He was among four people arrested in November 2020 after authorities raided an apartment on Traverse Place in Rutland, seizing cocaine, fentanyl, illegal prescription drugs and four firearms, according to federal court records.
Federal prosecutors said Cedano and another suspect in that case had also been involved in violent acts and threats of violence, including taking part in the assault of a woman who was coerced to deal drugs for them in the Rutland area.
The warrant for Cedano’s arrest on the murder charge was authorized this week by Judge Justin Jiron in Orleans County Superior criminal court in Newport.
It is unclear when Cedano will return to Vermont to face the murder charge.