A Bennington couple has been charged with being criminal accessories in the fatal shooting of a Massachusetts teen, whose body was found along a Danby road nearly two years ago.
Ashley Wicks and Shawn Bulson III pleaded not guilty in state court this week to being an accessory after the killing of Isaiah Rodriguez on Feb. 2, 2022. Law enforcement officials allege that about three people — who have not yet been charged in court — shot Rodriguez, 17, at an improvised shooting range in Danby following a dispute over drug trafficking and a stolen gun.
Rodriguez was found with 16 gunshot wounds, according to a state police affidavit filed in Vermont Superior Court.
Wicks, 32, and Bulson, 28, who according to the affidavit are in a relationship, are accused of assisting Rodriguez’s attackers to evade arrest or prosecution. Their felony charge carries a maximum prison sentence of seven years.
Vermont State Police investigators said that, on the night Rodriguez was killed, Wicks was part of a two-vehicle convoy that drove Rodriguez and the shooters from Bennington County to the site where he was shot. Afterward, police said, she and Bulson lied to investigators who were trying to solve the homicide case.
Bennington Superior Court Judge Kerry McDonald-Cady denied the prosecution’s request to detain both defendants with no option to post bail, citing as a reason the fact that their charge didn’t directly involve a violent act.
Bulson, who was arrested and jailed on Monday, could be released in exchange for a $5,000 cash or surety bond. He appeared in court to answer to the charge on Tuesday via video link from the Marble Valley Regional Correctional Facility in Rutland.
Wicks, who was also arrested Monday when she and Bulson appeared in court on prior charges, was released on conditions that included home detention. On Tuesday, a day after her arraignment, the judge ordered that she and Bulson could not have any contact, granting Deputy State’s Attorney Jared Bianchi’s request. She was also issued a $5,000 unsecured appearance bond, which she would need to pay if she failed to appear for a court hearing.
Prosecutors originally charged the couple with the more serious felonies of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and aiding in the commission of first-degree murder. McDonald-Cady did not find probable cause to uphold the charges but said the court can review additional supporting information the prosecution wants to submit.
The shooters’ original plan, according to witnesses who spoke to investigators, was just to scare Rodriguez by robbing him and leaving him in the woods. But some of them reportedly wanted to experience what it was like to kill someone or to raise their “street credibility,” according to a separate affidavit by a federal law enforcement officer.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the judge’s response to the prosecution’s request to uphold the charges in which the court didn’t find probable cause.
