BURLINGTON — Three people are facing federal drug charges after police raided a North Troy home in connection with a homicide investigation into the death of a woman whose body was found Tuesday in a large container on a sandbar in the Missisquoi River in Troy.
Documents filed in the drug cases reveal that one of the people arrested reported to police that he learned from another man that the victim, Kayla Wright, had been shot days earlier in that home by another man.
No arrests have been made in Wright’s death as the homicide investigation continues.
An autopsy showed that 29-year-old Wright died of a gunshot wound to her head, Vermont State Police said Wednesday.
Police had been searching for Wright, who lived in Derby and was reportedly last seen in Troy early Friday.
In connection with the probe of Wright’s homicide, authorities executed a search warrant Wednesday on a residence on Route 100 in North Troy, leading to the arrest of three people on drug-related charges, according to federal court records.
Wright had been at the home in the days before her death, according to the court documents filed Thursday in the drug cases.
Bryanna Rooney, 29, and her husband Thomas Rooney, 34 — who owned the home raided Wednesday — were taken into custody. Authorities also took Jakiy Tramaine Corey Keith, 24, into custody a day earlier after police reportedly saw a vehicle he was driving leave the property and later stopped him on Interstate 91 in the southern Vermont town of Westminster.
All three appeared briefly late Thursday afternoon in federal court in Burlington and were ordered by Magistrate Judge Kevin Doyle to remain in custody pending a hearing next week on their continued detention.
Keith, according to federal charging documents, was taken to the Westminster state police barracks and interviewed following the traffic stop. A state police detective recognized him as a person known as “AB” from a video recording as part of an ongoing drug investigation.
Keith identified himself as the person in the recording, according to the filing. He acknowledged knowing Wright, telling investigators he had last seen her Friday at the home on Route 100 in North Troy.
“He claimed that he went to sleep shortly thereafter and that Kayla was not at the house when he woke up,” the filing stated. “He claimed he tried to contact Kayla’s cell phone later that evening; when she did not respond, he communicated with Kayla’s sister.”
When he did not see Wright the following day, Keith said he “confronted all of the people in the house with his handgun and rifle and demanded to know where she was,” the filing stated.
Keith, according to the charging documents, said a man at the home told him that another man had come to the house Friday morning and confronted Wright about fake cash and then shot Wright three times with a 9 mm handgun.
Keith identified both men — the alleged shooter and the man who reported to Keith who the shooter was — to police. No charges had been filed against either of them as of late Thursday afternoon, according to state police.
Keith reported to police that the man told him that the shooter asked for help in cleaning the kitchen and disposing of the body. Keith said the man then told him that he had put Wright’s body in a toolbox with a diamond-plated top, according to the charging documents.
Keith also told authorities that the man recovered two 9 mm casings that he flushed down the toilet, and that he took Keith to the Big Falls area on Saturday afternoon to show him where he had dumped the toolbox in the river the night before, the filing indicated.
Keith, who said he was asleep in the home at the time he said he was told the shooting took place, reported to police he did not hear any gunshots, the documents stated.
In seeking to hold Keith in custody while the drug case remains pending, federal prosecutors wrote in a court filing that he was leaving Vermont at the time of the traffic stop and argued he had “substantial incentive to flee.” He also faces a pending case against him in Hartford, Connecticut, and has no known employment.
On Wednesday, according to the charging documents, authorities raided the home on Route 100 in North Troy and detained four people inside, including Bryanna and Thomas Rooney. Inside the home, the filing stated, authorities seized “multiple items of drug paraphernalia consistent with drug trafficking.”
In another filing seeking to keep Thomas Rooney in custody, prosecutors also referenced the ongoing homicide probe. Thomas Rooney, according to the document, allowed his home to be used for drug dealing and distribution, and was aware that others he invited into the residence possessed and used weapons.
“The conspiracy appears to have involved a murder and the disposition of the victim,” prosecutors wrote. “The case is among the most serious charged in this district.”
