[G]ov. Peter Shumlin stood on a high school soccer field and spoke Monday night to an enormous crowd of people holding candles burning in tribute to five teenagers killed in a crash less than two days earlier.
“I’ve had the privilege of being governor for six years and this is the saddest moment,” Shumlin said during a vigil to honor the teens on a brisk fall evening at Harwood Union High School in Duxbury.
“We all feel rage and confusion and sorrow and absolute speechlessness at the notion that this act could have happened with intent,” Shumlin said, with several family members of those killed seated only feet away, many of them embracing one another.
“When you see this sea of people from the Harwood community coming together, standing together in this cold being warmed by the candles,” he said, “it should give us hope that together we’ll find a way through this, taking care of the families that need us now more than ever.”
Four of the five students killed in the crash were students at Harwood. They included Eli Brookens, of Waterbury, Liam Hale, of Fayston, and Mary Harris and Cyrus Zschau, both of Moretown.
Janie Chase Cozzi, a Fayston resident, was a member of the Harwood community who went to a private school in New Hampshire.
They were killed in a crash late Saturday night on Interstate 89 in Williston when the vehicle they were all in was struck by a driver traveling the wrong way, according to authorities.
Prosecutors said in a court filing Monday that Steven D. Bourgoin, 36, of Williston, is facing a murder investigation in connection with that crash.
Bourgoin, the alleged wrong-way driver, was also injured in the crash and is in critical condition at the University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington.
The vigil Monday night paid respects to the lost lives of the teenagers, and no mention was made of Bourgoin. Police say nearly 1,000 people attended the memorial.
Patrick and Alison McHugh of Waterbury said their daughter Bailey, 15, and a Harwood student, approached them Sunday and asked how they could help after learning of the crash and death of the teens.
“I said, ‘Let’s pull some people together, hug it out and let’s see what we can do,’” Patrick McHugh recalled prior to Monday night’s vigil.
The idea of bringing people together turned into a statewide outpouring of support, he said.
“This has gone far and wide,” he added as people began arriving and vehicles overfilled the school’s lots and cars parked along nearby roadways.
“There is so much support because of the way these kids have touched the lives of people in school and out of school,” his daughter Bailey said, “through sports and music and everything.”
Alison McHugh performed the song, “His Eye is on the Sparrow,” during the vigil as many the crowd shed tears.
Darrell Mays, Mary Harris’s uncle, also spoke, saying that he knew the teenagers who were killed for most of their lives.
“Vengeance does no good, anger will only lead to violence,” he said. “Think of these families, these children, our community, and let’s be bigger than the bad guys.”
Mays also offered words of support and advice to Harwood students.
“Be thankful for your friends, feel blessed that you got to live today,” he said. “Do your best, live a great life, that’s what you can do for your friends who died.”
In addition to Shumlin and Mays, Harwood students Bobby Kelly and Bailey McHugh addressed the crowd, as did her father, Patrick McHugh.
“We just want to take a moment to read the names of those that we loved and those that will be forever in hearts … Janie, Mary, Eli, Liam and Cyrus.” Patrick McHugh said. “Remember them.”
