Updated 5:34 p.m.
A man accused of killing two people in Orleans pleaded not guilty in a Newport courtroom on Wednesday afternoon to two counts of second-degree murder and one charge of burglary into an occupied dwelling.
Cirell Brown, 23, of Orleans was arrested after police found him at a Water Street apartment building where the bodies of the two victims, both in their 60s, were discovered inside a doorway Tuesday evening.
Police had responded to the residence after receiving a report of someone inside beating another person with a baseball bat.
The victims have been preliminarily identified as Paula Broe, 61, and Steven Luisi, 65, according to court documents and a press release from Vermont State Police.
Relatives told investigators that Brown knew Broe and Luisi, according to a police affidavit filed in the case.
Attorney Lydia Newcomb, who represented Brown during Wednesday’s arraignment in Orleans County criminal court, entered the not guilty pleas on her client’s behalf. The defense attorney also asked that the court order a psychiatric evaluation of Brown to determine whether he was fit to stand trial.
“There are some serious concerns about his capacity to understand why exactly he is here today,” Newcomb told the court.
Judge Rory Thibault ordered an inpatient psychiatric examination of Brown and granted a request from Orleans County State’s Attorney Farzana Leyva that he be held without bail.
An affidavit filed by Vermont State Police Detective Sgt. James Vooris in support of the charges summed up the police investigation that led to Brown’s arrest in the case.
According to the document, police received a 911 call just after 5 p.m. Tuesday reporting a physical fight at 22 Water Street, in which a man inside the residence could be seen “beating someone with a baseball bat” through a window.
Vermont State Trooper Anthony Rice arrived at the residence to find the door broken and marked with what appeared to be blood, the affidavit said.
According to a supplemental affidavit filed by Rice, the responding officer saw the unconscious bodies of an older man and woman along with “an enormous amount” of blood. Rice then observed a man later identified as Brown, himself covered with blood, walk down the stairs of the apartment and stand over the bodies.
Rice asked if Brown had any weapons, and the latter took a knife out of his pocket, which he discarded before Rice took him into custody, according to the affidavit. Emergency medical professionals later arrived on the scene and pronounced the two victims dead.
Relatives told police that Brown had recently moved back to the area and frequented the victims’ residence before the alleged murders, according to Vooris’ affidavit.
A relative told investigators that the victims had become “leery of Brown because of his mental health issues,” Vooris wrote in his affidavit.
