A Mount Holly man who told police last week that his girlfriend fatally shot herself while they were driving on Route 4 in Killington is now in custody, facing a federal firearms charge.
Cody Ahonen, 28, made an initial video appearance Wednesday in federal court in Burlington from the Northwest State Correctional Center in St. Albans. He faces a federal charge of illegally possessing a firearm as a person previously convicted of domestic violence.
Brittany Bouthiette, 28, of Mount Holly was a passenger in a vehicle Ahonen was driving Sept. 15 in Killington. Police said Ahonen told them that Bouthiette “indicated she was despondent and pulled out a semiautomatic handgun” while they were driving. After a struggle for the gun, Bouthiette shot herself, according to the police report.
When police later searched the vehicle, they found other firearms and illegal drugs, according to court records.
Ahonen had been convicted in Windsor County in 2012 of domestic assault in a case that did not involve Bouthiette, according to court documents.
In another case, Ahonen was charged initially with aggravated domestic assault, allegedly punching a family member in the face and firing two shotgun rounds at that family member. However, the charge was later pleaded down to reckless endangerment, and he was placed on probation.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Wendy Fuller wrote in a request that Ahonen be held in custody. Magistrate Judge Kevin Doyle approved the request to hold Ahonen in custody.
Sara Puls, a federal public defender representing Ahonen, told the judge she was not contesting the prosecution’s request but would reserve the right to file a challenge later.
Brian Wood, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, submitted a filing Tuesday in federal court detailing the firearms charge against Ahonen. Wood wrote that a passerby on Route 4 in Killington last Wednesday reported seeing a man, later identified as Ahonen, performing CPR on a woman, but then he stopped, picked up a gun and threw it into weeds near a utility pole.
The passerby described the firearm as about 6 inches long and believed it was a Glock handgun, having seen one like it on television, Wood wrote.
The filing stated that police found a Glock on the side of the roadway, where it had been reported to have been thrown, with a spent casing in the chamber in the firearm.
Ahonen later told police that he and Bouthiette had become engaged two weeks earlier and recently returned from a vacation to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
In an affidavit filed in court, investigators said Ahonen told them he and Bouthiette “were having difficulty in their relationship but were working on it.” He said the two had been staying at an inn in Killington and had been talking a lot about their relationship, the filing stated.
During a car ride later that day, according to the affidavit, Ahonen told police “Bouthiette said she was sick of her life” and picked up the Glock from the center console. As he tried to get the gun away from her, she fired a round through the windshield.
As he tried to deal with the hole in the windshield, Ahonen said, Bouthiette picked up the gun and shot herself in the head, according to the filing. He reported that he threw the gun into the tall grass as he was helping Bouthiette because “he was scared,” the filing stated.
In a search of the vehicle, according to Wood, investigators found two chunks of suspected crack cocaine under the vehicle, weighing about 21.7 grams. Police also told the court they found a rifle with one round of ammunition in the chamber and 23 more rounds of ammunition in a magazine. They also reported finding 160 grams of cocaine, drug packaging, 77 rounds of .45-caliber ammunition, 445 rounds of .223-caliber ammunition, 25 rounds of 9mm-caliber ammunition, 50 rounds of .30-caliber ammunition and 23 rounds of 7mm-caliber ammunition.
Police also said they found one spent casing from a .45-caliber bullet, a digital scale, multiple cellphones and about $10,000 in cash.
An FBI agent involved in the case wrote in a court document that he was familiar with Ahonen because in February 2019 an informant had reported buying cocaine from him about 20 times.
Then, in August 2020, state police responded to Ahonen’s home in Mount Holly. According to Wood’s filing, Ahonen had been shot in the abdomen and was driven to a hospital by a neighbor. Other than reporting that he had been shot, the filing stated, Ahonen claimed he did not know how it happened and did not want to speak further with investigators.
And last month, according to the affidavit, authorities had opened another investigation into Ahonen after he reportedly brought a pistol into a Belmont gun shop and was trying to buy ammunition for it.
