RUTLAND — Two men have been arrested in a monthslong investigation into the beating death of a Rutland County man at a West Pawlet quarry, with one of the suspects facing a charge of first-degree murder.
Court records made public following the arrests over the past week show that police say the beating stemmed from a drug robbery turned deadly on the quarry property where the man who was killed lived in a camper and worked for over 20 years.
Richard Mattison, 42, of Poultney, pleaded not guilty Thursday in Rutland County Superior criminal court on the murder charge as well as a separate count of assault and robbery in the killing of 54-year-old Mark Ray of West Pawlet.
State police said they began their probe after Ray was assaulted during the overnight hours of Aug. 23 and Aug. 24 at the Newmont Slate Company quarry in West Pawlet, a town along the New York border. Ray was taken to the Albany Medical Center in New York for treatment, where he died Nov. 12 from related injuries.
The charges against Mattison, according to police, come after New York State Police arrested Stephen J. Williams Jr., 38, of Granville, New York, last week in connection with burglaries in that state as well as a Vermont warrant for an assault and robbery charge from the attack on Ray.
Williams has been jailed in New York state and is expected to be extradited to face the charge in Vermont at a later date.
Rutland County State’s Attorney Ian Sullivan told the judge Thursday the evidence against Mattison included cell phone data that placed him in the area of the assault as well as a statement from Williams following his arrest in New York.
“This was a planned robbery of drugs as described by Mr. Mattison’s co-defendant,” Sullivan said.
“When Mr. Mattison saw the victim asleep in his camper, he snuck into the camper and struck the victim in the head with a hammer causing a bone-crushing sound,” the prosecutor said. “Later, when the victim stumbled outside the camper, Mr. Mattison again struck the victim in the head with the hammer and then left him there to die.”
Judge Cortland Corsones agreed to a request from Sullivan to hold Mattison without bail, pending a hearing on the strength of the state’s evidence. James Brooks, Mattison’s attorney, did not oppose the prosecutor’s request.
Brooks declined to comment following the hearing.
Mattison attended the hearing by video from the Marble Valley Regional Correctional Facility in Rutland.
Williams told police that he said to Mattison that he believed Ray, who he had known, had a “large amount” of narcotics in his camper, and Williams and Mattison agreed to try to steal the drugs, Detective Trooper Nicholas Grimes of the Vermont State Police wrote in an affidavit in support of the charges against Mattison.
Williams told police that after Mattison struck Ray with a hammer in the camper, he along with Mattison stole a bag of cocaine from the dresser in Ray’s bedroom and then took about $1,400 in cash and more cocaine from the pockets of Ray’s pants, Grimes wrote.
Williams “assumed that the money had been split up evenly,” Grimes added, with Williams commenting that the money had been “covered in blood” and that Mattison “had
attempted to clean the blood off the money.”
Williams described the hammer used in the attack as “sledge-style” with a long wooden handle, the affidavit stated.
Mattison, according to Williams’ statement to police, became nervous that the vehicle they were in might have been spotted on surveillance video. As a result, Williams told police, Mattison drove the vehicle to a remote location in the nearby town of Wells and set it on fire.
Mattison, in statements to police in late August and in September, denied that he had ever been on the quarry property in West Pawlet or inside Ray’s camper, the affidavit stated. Also, according to the affidavit, Mattison denied any involvement in Ray’s assault.
If convicted of the first-degree murder charge, Mattison faces up to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
