A 15-year-old boy from Springfield, Massachusetts, is facing a second-degree murder charge after police said he shot and killed a 38-year-old woman who was found dead last month in her vehicle in St. Johnsbury.
Police documents filed in court described an alleged encounter between two pairs of people — the defendant and another teen, and 38-year-old Christina Chatlos and a passenger in her car — in the moments leading up to Chatlos’ killing.
Chatlos’s passenger told police she had been in possession of the defendant’s cellphone, and police wrote that the teen could be heard demanding its return in an audio recording captured on voicemail before Chatlos’ death.
Police did not release the 15-year-old’s name, though charging documents identify him. VTDigger generally does not identify juvenile defendants and is not doing so at this time.
The teen was previously taken into custody in St. Johnsbury on an unrelated Massachusetts warrant and extradited to that state while police continued investigating Chatlos’ killing, according to Vermont State Police. He was arrested there on the Vermont murder warrant on Monday, authorities said.
The Caledonia County State’s Attorney’s Office, which is leading the prosecution of the teen, is initiating extradition proceedings to have him brought to Vermont to face the murder charge. A court hearing on the matter was expected to take place in Massachusetts’ Hampden County on Monday.
No date has been set for the teen’s arraignment in Vermont.
Caledonia County State’s Attorney Jessica Zaleski could not immediately be reached Monday afternoon for comment.
Judge Benjamin Battles signed the warrant, finding probable cause for the second-degree murder charge.
The 15-year-old’s arrest marks the second time in recent months that a minor has been charged with murder in an adult court in Vermont.
In October, a 14-year-old boy from Burlington was charged in Addison County Superior criminal court in Middlebury with second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of another 14-year-old, Madden Gouveia of Shelburne.
According to police and prosecutors, the 14-year-old and Gouveia had been passengers in the same car when the defendant was allegedly waving the gun around and it went off, firing a bullet that killed Gouveia.
That case is still pending, and Marshall Pahl, the deputy defender general representing the teen facing the charge, has filed a motion seeking to have it transferred to family court where his client would be treated as a juvenile and proceedings would take place behind closed doors.
No ruling has yet been made on that motion.
Police have said Chatlos, of Williamstown and Barre, was found dead in a shot-up car in St. Johnsbury from a gunshot wound in the area of 510 Portland St. in St. Johnsbury a little before 6 p.m. on Jan. 23. An autopsy concluded she died from a gunshot wound to the torso.
According to an affidavit filed by state police Detective Sgt. Francis LaBombard, a witness who called 911 told police she was on her porch and had seen two juveniles walking in the direction of where the shooting took place. After she heard a “pow,” she told police, she saw the two juveniles run away in different directions.
A second witness told police that she had a missed call from her cousin, Juan Marquez, that resulted in a voicemail on the evening of Jan. 23, according to the affidavit. In the recording, she said, she heard a male voice saying he was going to shoot and kill Chatlos.
The woman reported she then heard a couple of gunshots and her cousin yelling at Chatlos to drive away, the affidavit stated.
“They killed her, they killed her,” Marquez said, according to the filing.
Investigators obtained a warrant for the recording and, in listening to it, heard Chatlos “having an altercation with a male subject,” the affidavit stated.
“I was able to hear Chatlos at one point in the recording, pleading with the male subject, telling him she has kids as the male subject is heard demanding his phone back” or he was going to shoot and kill her, LaBombard wrote.
Police said they also interviewed Marquez, who said one of the teens had a gun. He also reported that he believed Chatlos had a cellphone that belonged to the male with the gun.
Police said they also seized videos from several locations around where the shooting took place, including one from the Cornerstone School that showed Chatlos driving up the east side of the school entrance. Chatlos was in the driver’s seat and Marquez was in the passenger seat, the detective wrote.
The 15-year-old boy and another teen are also seen in the video, with the 15-year-old standing at the driver’s side window, the affidavit stated. Marquez got out of the vehicle and walked to the two teens, according to the filing.
“At this time,” Labombard wrote, “(the 15-year-old boy) raises his right hand and points his handgun at Marquez. As Marquez backs up (the 15-year-old boy) walks towards him until Marquez is back on the passenger side of the vehicle.”
The 15-year-old boy then “appears to engage” Chatlos and points the gun through the driver’s side window at her, the detective wrote.
“There appears to be a struggle at the driver’s side window with Chatlos and the (teen),” the filing stated, adding, “Chatlos then drives forward while (the teen) is running alongside the vehicle and chases her behind the school.”
The vehicle then drives off the blacktop and up an embankment before coming to an “abrupt” stop, the detective wrote. The teen runs up to the passenger’s side door, tries to open it, points a handgun at the window and fires a single shot into the window, the affidavit stated.
During the investigation, LaBombard wrote, police found that the 15-year-old boy and another teen had come to St. Johnsbury two days before the shooting to sell crack cocaine.
After the shooting, the detective wrote, the teens returned to an apartment where they had been staying and changed clothes and tried to hide there from police before they both were eventually taken into custody.
If convicted of the charge of second-degree murder, the teen faces 20 years to life in prison.
Correction: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this story omitted Juan Marquez’s first name.
