A Lamoille County Sheriff’s Deputy has been placed on administrative leave amid an investigation into a conversation he had with a man charged with murder.
Deputy Christopher Turner was assigned to transport duty in the trial this week of Seth Brunell, who has been charged with second-degree murder for the 2022 killing of Fern Feather, a transgender Hinesburg woman.
On Monday, as Turner and Brunell were driving from the Hyde Park courthouse to Southern State Correctional Facility, where Brunell was being held, the two engaged in a lengthy conversation — something Brunell’s attorney described as inappropriate and in violation of Brunell’s constitutional rights.
Lamoille County Sheriff Roger Marcoux said in an interview Thursday evening that Turner has been placed on administrative leave while an outside law enforcement agency conducts an investigation.
It was not yet clear what outside law enforcement agency will perform the investigation, Marcoux said, nor how long it will take.
“I’ve been in law enforcement for 45 years, and when these kind of things happen, you feel terrible,” Marcoux said. “This family, Fern’s family, deserved to have justice and closure.”
The conversation prompted Jessica Burke, Brunell’s defense attorney, to ask the judge for a mistrial — and ultimately led to an abrupt plea deal that lets Brunell walk free without serving more prison time. Brunell has been jailed since his arrest in 2022.
Taken together, it marks a swift and remarkable conclusion to a murder trial that was three years in the making.
According to a transcript of the conversation, which was recorded on a body camera, Turner and another law enforcement officer in the vehicle asked Brunell multiple questions about the day he was alleged to have killed Feather and his relationship with his defense attorney, Jessica Burke.
The identity of the other law enforcement officer was not immediately clear, but they were a Rutland County Sheriff’s Deputy, according to Marcoux.
Burke wrote that the plan to record the conversation had started with a Vermont State Police investigator, who had communicated a desire to record the transport of Brunell “for the explicit purpose of obtaining evidence to use against the Defendant.”
Adam Silverman, a spokesperson for the state police, referred comment to the Lamoille County State’s Attorney. Aliena Gerhard, the state’s attorney, did not immediately respond to an email Thursday evening.
The transcript of the conversation, which was filed with Lamoille County Superior Court, does not clarify who exactly said what. But it shows that law enforcement officers in the vehicle asked Brunell multiple questions about the day he killed Feather. Officers asked Brunell about the knife he allegedly used: “Was it pretty heavy?” and “Did it have like a belt loop that you could put it on your belt and stuff?”
They also asked about Brunell’s interactions with Feather, about what Brunell described as Feather’s sexual advances and the condition of their car. Brunell answered many of the questions at length, describing many of the events prior to Feather’s killing in detail.
Officers also asked about Brunell’s opinion about Burke — “You happy with your lawyer right now?” — and a previous lawyer, who Brunell said he did not like.
Those inquiries — about Burke’s and Brunell’s relationship — were “repugnant questions to any notion of justice and fair play,” Burke wrote in her motion for dismissal.
“Vermonters should be ashamed of law enforcement’s conduct in this case,” she wrote.
