BURLINGTON — A former Burlington man found guilty last year of two counts of murder for fatally shooting two men on the same night in different communities has been sentenced to 45 years to life in prison.
Prosecutors had asked for a sentence of 50 years to life behind bars for 55-year-old Denroy Dasent, while his attorney did not make a specific request.
“You can’t imagine a much more serious offense,” Judge John Pacht said in Chittenden County Superior criminal court in Burlington as he imposed the prison term Monday.
A jury returned guilty verdicts against Dasent in November on two counts of second-degree murder following a five-day trial and four hours of deliberations. The charges stem from a night of crime in October 2022 that spanned two Chittenden County cities.
The hearing Monday featured emotional testimony from family members of the victims, 40-year-old Sheikhnoor Osman and 37-year-old Brian K. Billings II, and defiant comments from Dasent.
No clear motive for the killings has been revealed. His defense team contended that witness testimony didn’t clearly identify Dasent as the killer in either case.
Daniel Maguire, Dasent’s attorney, told the judge in court Monday that his client wouldn’t let him put on an insanity defense at the trial, despite expert opinions that Dasent had a psychotic disorder with delusions.
Maguire, in a sentencing document filed ahead of the hearing Monday, wrote that Dasent appeared to believe the shootings “were somehow connected to a federal plot he imagined” he was taking part in.
“He believed a bank teller that he regularly saw was a federal operative giving him orders and support,” Maguire wrote of Dasent, adding that the bank teller has since been interviewed and has no connection to the government.
The judge, after listening to testimony Monday from family members of Osman and Billings, asked Dasent if wanted to address the court. Dasent told Pacht he did, and proceeded to lash out.
“I’m just not going to sit here and take this bashing,” Dasent told the judge.
Dasent reiterated his claim that the shootings were part of a federal plot and that he couldn’t get the proper authorities to investigate. Then, in an apparent warning to victim family members who spoke Monday, he said they better watch what they say because he has connections with people outside of prison.
“That’s all I got,” he then told the judge.
Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George said after the hearing that she was satisfied with the judge’s sentence.
“It was slightly less than what we were asking for, but it’s still a sentence that I think ensures that Mr. Dasent will not return to our community,” George said.
Dasent, according to trial testimony, didn’t know Osman and had been neighbors with Billings at one time.
Chittenden County Deputy State’s Attorneys Sally Adams and Kelton Olney spoke during the trial of the strong evidence against Dasent.
The prosecutors highlighted witness accounts as well as findings by a firearms expert who connected shell casings recovered from both shooting scenes to a gun Dasent told investigators he had thrown into Lake Champlain shortly before he was arrested. His arrest came after a high-speed pursuit through Burlington.
Adams, in seeking a sentence of 50 years to life, termed the killings deliberate, intentional and targeted.
According to charging documents, Dasent shot and killed Osman around 8:15 p.m. on Oct. 2, 2022, in a Pine Street apartment in Burlington. Osman was lying on a bed when, according to the prosecutor, Dasent shot him six times in the head and chest.
About three hours later, the charging documents stated, Dasent shot Billings four times outside Billings’ apartment on Williston Road in South Burlington. Billings made it back into his apartment, where he lived with his fiancee and two young children, but died after collapsing on the floor.
Dasent had run the Island Passion restaurant at the University Mall in South Burlington. He was born in St. Croix and moved to California and later to Vermont in 2021.
About two weeks before the killings, Dasent was arrested on a charge of domestic assault. Burlington police also testified in the case that Dasent was a suspect in a shooting in City Hall Park in which no one was injured in the days leading up to fatal shootings.
In court Monday, a victim advocate read a statement to the judge from Bashara Osman, a sister of Sheikhnoor Osman. She described her brother as her best friend, a loving person and a “guiding light” to many. With his death, Bashara Osman’s letter stated, “We are left in darkness.”
Many of Billings’ family members also addressed the judge, who said Billings was known as “Little B.” They called him a caring son, brother, uncle, cousin, father, partner and friend. When he would learn of someone in need, they said, he was often the first to lend a hand — even in some cases when he wasn’t quite sure how to fix what needed repair.
They described him as a fun, creative person with a passion for drawing, and a fear of heights. They also called on the judge to impose the maximum penalty for Dasent.
“I want justice for my son,” his mother, Lee Anne Billings, told the judge, adding, “He is not a docket number, he is not another statistic.”
Kylie Clark, Billings’ fiancee, seated at the prosecution table as she spoke, looked directly at Dasent seated about 10 feet away as she described the impact of Billings’ death on her and their two children.
She called Billings’ death “senseless” and said to Dasent, “You sit there and you don’t care.”
