INNOCENT UNTIL:

THE STATE OF VERMONT V. BRYAN HALE

THE MOVE

      Bryan told me I should be at his place at 6:00 a.m. If I wasn’t there by then, he would leave without me. I arrived at his apartment at 5:55. I heard him unlock the four deadbolts on his front door and let me in. He was awake, but barely. His eyes were sunken, his hair disheveled and his shoulders hunched. Seeing him on that summer morning jogged my memory to first time I met him nearly two years ago when I started this story. His speech was restless and his eyes were darting around the coffee shop where we’d agreed to meet. Whatever energy he had then was now gone.

      After throwing on a t-shirt, shorts and sandals, we finally hit the road. It would be a three-hour drive from his apartment in Somerville to his hometown of Bethlehem, Vermont. His red Subaru station wagon was virtually empty. It would be full by the end of the day.

      I worried he would fall asleep at the wheel. His energy didn’t seem to improve as morning went on. He said that he was fine. He had made the trek many times before. I asked him how he was feeling this morning.

      “I don't know,” he replied. “Kind of stressed. It's really nerve-wracking when you move. But I'm glad too. I never want to set foot in that place again.”

      Entering Bethlehem is idyllic. Farmhouses surrounded by lush fields eventually give way to thick forests and gently sloped mountains that seemingly stretch on for an eternity. We drove through the peaceful downtown that consisted of city hall, a roadside diner, a church, and an old brick textile mill perched on the bank of the Green River.

      By the time we arrived at his boyhood home on Revere Street, his parents – Peter and Dawn – had already cleared out most of the two-story house. They placed everything left in Bryan’s bedroom – his childhood toys, some clothes leftover from high school, a guitar he hadn’t played since college – on the porch. They swiftly loaded items into a moving van and Bryan's car without much chatter. In a few hours, the home they spent 25 years making was empty.

      “It's strange,” Peter told me. “It's just a place. It'll probably be torn down once the new owners come in. I’m real bummed about that. You really do get attached to it. Oh well. Nothing gold can stay, you know.” The man was the spitting image of his 28-year-old son. Both stood about six feet tall with broad shoulders and puffy wind-swept cheeks. His wife gave him a pat on the shoulder to cheer him up.

      “I'm looking forward to the weather,” she said with a smile. They were destined for South Carolina. Dawn would resume her career in nursing, while Peter wasn’t quite sure he what he would do for work. At 57, he felt too young to retire. He also worried about making friends. Dawn, ever the optimist, was confident that they could connect with folks down there, even at their age.

      Dawn had urged his son to join them for breakfast in town, but Bryan refused. Peter also objected to going out to eat. They argued for a moment; the two men ultimately got their way.

      Bryan and I got back into his station wagon, now brimming with items from his youth, and started the long drive back to Boston. With that, he hoped to close one of the darkest chapters in the history of Vermont.

*     *     *

      After graduating in 2010 from Boston University with a degree in computer science, Bryan moved back in with his parents after the job market in Boston had dried up. He did not have a steady income, but he did have his girlfriend, a fellow B.U. student who lived just off campus. Bryan would visit every weekend that summer while doing odd jobs back in Vermont during the week. They contemplated moving in together, but they knew their parents would never allow it, at least not until they were married.

      While his girlfriend returned to school in the fall for her senior year, Bryan struggled to find full-time work. He sent out application after application for months, some for jobs in Boston, others as far afield as Keane, New Hampshire and Saratoga Springs, New York. He could not even muster a response, much less a rejection. At that time, he told me, he started to feel depressed and paralyzed.

Finally, on Monday October 25th, he received a call from Divya Shah, a recruiter from Bidgood Information Technologies. It was an IT services firm just outside of Burlington. Bryan completed a phone interview on Tuesday, an in-person interview on Wednesday, and was officially hired on Friday. His first day was on Monday November 1st.

      On that first day, Bryan was introduced to Thomas A. McLaughlin III, a 38-year old Sales Associate who had just started just one week earlier. The encounter would alter Bryan's life from that day forward. For McLaughlin, there's no telling how his life could have changed.

THE MEETING

      McLaughlin was born in Auburn Hills, Michigan, the son of an electrician and a homemaker. An average student, he went into sales immediately after high school, peddling everything from cars to home insurance to washing machines to cleaning supplies until he worked his way up to stocks and bonds. In 1997, he met University of Michigan student Alicia Johnson, and the two fell in love.

      “He’s like a big kid,” said Sarah, Alicia’s sister. “He’s been super nice and energetic every time I’ve seen him. He’s always been that way.”

      They married and had two children, Cadence and Thomas IV, also known as “Crash.” They lived in a three-bedroom home in Dearborn. In July 2008, McLaughlin’s father was killed in a car accident. His mother passed away from cancer a few months after that. Then the financial crisis hit. After losing his job as a broker, they sold their house in Dearborn and moved in with Alicia’s mother at 23 Furman Drive in her hometown of Burlington, where Alicia was a homecoming queen and the director of the color guard in high school. Thomas would be out of work for another 18 months until he landed the job at Bidgood (or B.I.T. as it was often referred).

      Their financial struggles continued after the move. Sarah confided that her mother had trouble paying her utility bills, and having four new family members move in did not help matters. She admitted to worrying about the family’s demeanor. Photos on social media pages showed that McLaughlin had gained a significant amount of weight between 2008 and 2010 and often appeared unshaven. His hair grew grayer, which he just brushed to one side as it fell over his forehead.

      But on November 1st, Thomas was clean-shaven and sporting a blue button-down shirt, khakis and slightly worn out loafers – the standard dress code at Bidgood. Like Bryan, he stood tall, a full six foot three. They towered over everyone else in the office. Outside of being two white males who endured unemployment for the last few months, they didn’t have much in common. One was a recent college graduate, the other was a family man. One had a life ahead of him, and other would end in less than two weeks.

*     *     *

      Even though Bryan was thankful for the opportunity and the steady income, his position as Sales Assistant was far from a career. He was under contract for 90 days, with his desk sitting just outside the men's restroom. Bidgood struggled to keep many employees longer than those 90 days.

      Crammed inside a 900 square-foot office and bathed in dull fluorescent light, one former employee described the company as “barely functional” and “hellish.” Director of Business Development Alan Diveroli required his sales staff to make at least 300 cold calls per week and set up at least 12 meetings per month, even pushing products and services that the company could not provide. If they failed to meet those quotas, Diveroli would launch into verbal tirades that only exacerbated the toxic environment. It didn’t help that he did not know how to type. Bryan’s first few days in the office were mostly consumed with typing up his boss's emails and presentations.

      To assuage the animus that plagued the office, President Arun Shah invited the entire B.I.T. staff to a potluck dinner at his home in Colchester on Friday November 5th. It would be a welcome party for their two new hires, and employees’ families were welcome to join. Bryan had asked his girlfriend if she would like to come, but she was busy with schoolwork. The entire McLaughlin family was there along with Diveroli’s wife and three children.

      With much of the staff over 40 years of age and from India, Bryan and McLaughlin quickly struck up a conversation out on the deck of Shah’s house. It was unseasonably warm on that November night. Everyone else was inside chatting and the children preoccupied with a movie.

      Bryan and Thomas talked about their passion for alpine skiing. Both had learned to ski at an early age, but neither could afford to it as often. Both dreamt of skiing out west in the Rocky Mountains. Bryan had never skied a mountain bigger than Stowe, and Thomas said has never been on mountains larger than the bunny hills of eastern Michigan. They also looked forward the ski and snow sport expo in Burlington in a couple of weeks. McLaughlin seemed particularly excited about all the deals he could take advantage of with their newfound employment.

      “We must have talked about it for at least an hour,” Bryan remembers. “The only other thing we talked about was working at Bidgood. I mean, I couldn’t lie. It was horrible. I was only there a week, but I hated it.”

      According to Bryan, Thomas laughed and thanked for his honesty. “He said I shouldn’t be in sales if I was ever that honest,” Bryan added. McLaughlin maintained a cheerful façade and congratulated Bryan on his first real job. “We did a little cheers to that. He said I should be happy. He said I had his whole life ahead of me.”

      When the two went back inside for another drink, B.I.T. proved to be toxic outside of the office as it was in it. After the children finished their movie, they began to wrestle playfully. Crash, living up to his nickname, grappled with Diveroli’s oldest son and wrestled him to the ground, inadvertently knocking his head against the brick fireplace. The accident caused the son to cry and ignited his father’s ire. He screamed at both Thomas and Alicia, insisting that they discipline their son. The party cleared out after that.

      The following Monday, it was business as usual. Diveroli upped the sale team’s quotas to 360 calls a week and 20 meetings a month. Bryan soon became responsible for arranging those sales meetings and conference calls, responding to a number of Diveroli's clients both by phone and email, as well as coordinating projects with the production team in India. These resulted in the office at 7:30 a.m. and leave around 6:30 p.m. During his few hours of free time in the evening, Bryan returned to scouring the internet for more job openings. “I went right back to sending out tons of applications,” he said. “I wish I had found something else sooner. I would have taken unemployment over it.”

      Paychecks were issued on the 15th of every month. But November 15th, nothing was sent out.

      “It was really my fault, it had nothing to do with the company,” says Dorthea Lotter, the head of Accounting and Human Resources. She had arranged that two paychecks would be issued the following pay period. “It was honestly a mistake. I can’t shake the feeling that it had something to do with what happened that night. I lose sleep over it. I really do.”

      The missed paycheck only made the financial situation at 23 Furman Drive worse. “I sensed something was wrong,” her sister Sarah told me. “I remember Alicia called me complaining about it and about Tom. I wasn’t sure they were going to make it. It looked like they were headed for divorce. But there was no anticipating this. Nothing like this.” She started to choke back tears.

THE SLAYINGS

      The following morning, McLaughlin was late for work. Diveroli griped that was absent without notifying the office suggested that the other members of staff increase their call volume by 10% in his absence. At 10:21, the receptionist received a call from McLaughlin saying he would be out sick that day. This enraged Diveroli even more. He tried calling McLaughlin’s cell, but it went straight to voicemail.

      The next day, every employee at Bidgood arrived at work on time. McLaughlin was absent for a second straight day. Diveroli and Shah attempted to reach him on his cell phone, but they received no answer. They briefly discussed letting him go for his truancy, but they tabled the discussion for later in the day.

      Just after noon, Shah received a call from the Burlington Police Department. They asked if they had spoken to McLaughlin that day, and Shah answered no.

      The officer then informed Shah that four bodies had been discovered at the McLaughlins’ home on 23 Furman Drive, and that the father’s whereabouts were unknown. The state police would soon arrive at the Bidgood office as a security measure.

      Shah called an emergency meeting of everyone at the company and explained the situation. “Shock. Just silence and shock,” recalls Dorthea Lotter upon hearing the news. Shah encouraged them to keep their heads down and continue working, but to also have the McLaughlin family in their thoughts and prayers.

      “Everyone rushed back to their computers and checked the news,” Bryan recalls. “I could hear the videos playing at everyone’s desks.” At a press conference just outside the taped off crime scene at Furman Drive, a Vermont State Police captain announced that the bodies of Alicia McLaughlin, Theresa Kelley Johnson, Cadence McLaughlin and Thomas “Crash” McLaughlin IV had been found on the premises by a family friend after not hearing from them for two days. They also announced that the whereabouts of Thomas McLaughlin were unknown, and that police were on the lookout for him.

      Twenty minutes later, investigators arrived at the B.I.T. office and interviewed every member of the company one-on-one. They asked questions about McLaughlin and his behavior on the previous days. “They first asked if I knew who he was,” Bryan recalled. “I said ‘yes.’ They then asked me what his demeanor was like in the time that I knew him, and I told them the truth. He was friendly. He looked happy. They asked me what he was like the day before, if his mood or his behavior was any different. I said ‘no.’ He was exactly the same. That’s what I remember. That’s exactly how I remember it.”

*     *     *

      The police were already building their case against McLaughlin. They would not need any of the testimonies collected at Bidgood.

      After uncovering the bodies at the McLaughlin home, they found a written confession signed by Thomas. “I murdered my family. I don’t know what came over me but I lost control. I have failed in my duties as a father and I wish it didn’t have to end this way. I love my kids with all my heart and I could not see them living in this world without there (sic) mother and father. It has hard so hard (sic) but I did the best I could. All I can say is that I’m sorry with my whole heart. I am truly and deeply sorry for what has happened.”

      The scene inside the house echoed McLaughlin’s note. The body of Alicia was found on the kitchen floor, suffering nearly a dozen deep stab wounds from a large carving knife. Detectives suspected that an argument arose in that area of the house, possibly due to the bounced check from B.I.T. and being behind on bills. A blood trail lead to the living room, where his mother-in-law Theresa lay dead with four stab wounds to the abdomen and one across the throat.

      The trail then led the rooms of the two children. Early signs were that McLaughlin attempted to smother Crash, but after some struggle, he delivered several violent strikes to the head to subdue his son. He then proceed to Cadence’s room and smothered her with a pillow. There was no blood drawn in the death of the 5-year-old girl.

      “There’s a misconception that I want to clear up,” Detective Barry Peters of the Vermont State Police told me. “In the movies, it only takes a minute to choke someone to death. That’s not how it is in real life. It usually takes three to four minutes to asphyxiate someone to incapacitation. That’s what I can’t get over. McLaughlin had his hands over his own daughter for three to four minutes. That’s three to four minutes thinking about what he’s done. Three to four minutes to stop and rethink his situation. He didn’t do that. He choked her until she was dead. This is a sick man. He’s a sick man who deserves everything that’s coming to him.”

*     *     *

      The following morning, Police Chief Andrew Marchman announced that they were making every effort to find and apprehend McLaughlin. He said they had set up checkpoints at every road crossing state borders, with the largest presence at the U.S.-Canada border just 40 miles north of Burlington.

      But the search was slowed by snow. An unusually early blizzard covered much of the state in nine inches of snow on Thursday November 18th. Police had to wait for roads to be cleared before resuming their search. They hoped that the weather hampered McLaughlin’s movement as well.

      “The mood is the office was very low,” Dorthea told me. “We were all in shock. I don’t think anyone even said ‘hi’ to each other over the next few days. We were all very depressed.”

      “We had so much to do, I couldn’t really dwell on it.” Bryan said. “But it was always in the back of my head. I was seriously worried he would come back to the office and shoot up the place. I really was. He seemed capable of anything.” Per police protocol, two police offices in an unmarked car stayed at the office complex in the event that McLaughlin returned.

*     *     *

      Bryan’s mood did not improve at the ski and snowboard expo the following day. After making the trek to downtown Burlington, he hoped the show would give him a break from the despondency that affected area since the murders on Monday.

      A prominent slogan displayed at the expo encouraged attendees to “hit the slopes and leave your worries behind.” The marketing did not appear to work on Bryan, however. “I was still feeling weird that whole day,” he admitted. The deals on skis and equipment were also not as enticing as he hoped, so he left a few hours later without buying anything.

      There were no security cameras around the St. Paul's Episcopal Church parking lot where Bryan parked his car. If there had been, it would help police understand what happened around 4:00 p.m. as he was walking back to his car. “I thought it was a homeless man at first. But when I saw it was him, I just froze. I didn’t know what to do.” According to Bryan, McLaughlin approached him, adorned in an older winter coat and worn-out baseball cap. McLaughlin apparently smiled as he approached Bryan.

      “His teeth were really yellow. It looked like he hadn’t showered or shaved in days.” But his demeanor was the same, at least according to Bryan. He appeared to be high spirits walking right up to Bryan and vigorously shaking his hand, asking how he had been the past few days.

      “I didn’t know what to say. I think you just go back to this routine that you do with everyone. You mention your job and how things are going at home or at the office. So that’s what I did. I just mentioned things at the office were tough. It’s like I couldn’t just bring up that he had killed his whole family a few days ago.”

      According to Bryan, McLaughlin also asked if he was in town for the expo, just as they discussed a few weeks ago. Bryan said “yes”, and McLaughlin said that he was in town for the same reason. Then he took the conversation back their shared dream of skiing out west. He was just so enamored by the thought that he wanted to do it right now. Right this second. To drop everything, drive out west and experience the thrills of big mountain skiing at this very moment.

      “I shook my head. I was going to say ‘no,’ just flat out ‘no.’ But he took a step closer to me, and I was worried he had a weapon or something. I just couldn’t say anything I was so scared. He said we should do it while we’re young. That just made me fear for my life even more. I can’t explain why.” Bryan finally spit out the word “okay” and agreed to the spontaneous ski vacation. The two got into Bryan’s red station wagon and headed west.

THE ESCAPE

      In all 50 states, there are statues that cover “duty to rescue.” These laws pertain to instances wherein an individual or group of people do not act in rescuing a person in peril. Ten states have laws requiring people to, at the very least, notify law enforcement or seek aid for people in peril. Vermont is one of those states.

      “There’s a fine line between ‘failure to respond’ and ‘aiding and abetting,’” Detective Peters told me in our first meeting two years ago. “Bryan was towing that line when he let the suspect into his car. He may not have been a situation to stop a fugitive, but it does raise a lot of questions. If McLaughlin had such a friendly demeanor, why did Bryan feel so threatened? If he’s in Burlington with a big show right around the corner, why didn’t he go back inside? And why – in God’s name – did he go along with this charade? What was it about? Skiing?”

      “Looking back, you know, we see a lot of ways he could reasoned his way out of it,” said Detective Bill Hammond, the other investigator in the case. “They didn’t pack anything. They didn’t have cash on hand. You could’ve just said you had to be with your family or girlfriend that weekend. There’s one right there. But I don’t know. I wasn’t there. In those situations, the stress and difficulty can impair your judgment or make you literally freeze. That could’ve been what happened here.”

      There are endless possibilities for what Bryan was thinking that afternoon. He still can’t reason it himself. Whenever I brought it up, his shoulders slouch, his head hangs, and he struggles to say a word. In spite of the vagaries of the situation, the fact remains that Bryan and McLaughlin were now in a car driving south on Vermont Route 7 with the intention of heading all the way to the Rocky Mountains.

*     *     *

      They were on the road for two-and-a-half hours and running low on gas. Bryan drove slowly, about ten miles per hour below the speed limit, and kept his eyes on the road ahead. He told McLaughlin that he had to concentrate. The roads still were not entirely cleared of snow, and there were also no streetlights to illuminate their route once the sun had set.

      “The only thing we talked about was work,” Bryan said. “He just kept going back to what a horrible place it was and how lucky we were to be taking some time off. He said I should be thanking him. I didn’t want to say anything after that.”

      Bryan was really trying to find a police cruiser or checkpoint. “I was trying my best to get the attention of the police. I really was. I was going to pull over. I was going to flash my lights. I was going to do everything I could to bring this guy in.”

      It looked like he would get his chance once they turned onto Route 67 West. He knew they would be approaching the border with New York and there would be a road block there. There had to be. They said so on the news.

      But when they got to the big green sign emblazoned with the words “Welcome to New York”, there were no police cruisers waiting. There were no officers with their guns drawn and their lights flashing. Instead, the road was completely clear.

      “I don’t want to make it seem like I’m ungrateful to the police or anything,” Bryan told me, “but they said they had road blocks set up and had every man looking for this guy. That’s what they said on the news. I didn’t see that. I don’t think I would be getting criticized for not doing more to stop this guy if the police had done more to stop this guy.”

      “Vermont State Police takes these kinds of violent crimes very, very seriously,” said Police Chief Andrew Marchman in a press conference on November 19th. McLaughlin had been missing for four days at that point, and the public was growing restless. “We have taken every precaution to ensure the people here are safe and that this man is brought to justice. We have done everything in our means to conduct this manhunt safely. Some of our guys haven’t seen their families for the last four days. I stand by them and I stand by their efforts so far.”

      A few miles later, on a black, desolate stretch of Route 67, Bryan’s station wagon ran out of gas. He pulled as close to the side of the road as he could. The entire passenger side of his car scrapped against the snow bank. To their right was a thick patch of woods. To their left was a large field with a small mobile home sitting in the middle of a large steppe of snow. Bryan insisted that they call off their little ski vacation and phone someone for help. But McLaughlin was adamant.

      “He grabbed my arm really hard,” Bryan recalls. “I couldn’t pull it away. He wasn’t like angry or crazy or anything. He was just really desperate. He really wanted to keep going hell or high water, and I didn’t want to see what would happen if we didn’t.” They stepped out of the car, but Bryan did not feel confident in running. There was nowhere to go other than that small one-story home in this rural stretch of upstate New York. He decided to test his luck with the house.

      Both he and McLaughlin trudged their way down the unshoveled driveway and up to the mobile home. They knocked on the door, and Lucinda Oney answered.

*     *     *

      Lucinda Oney have lived in Rensselaer County for 22 years. Born in Newark, New Jersey, she worked as a schoolteacher for three decades until she and her husband Michael retired to farm living in the late 1980s. After he passed away of a repertory illness, she moved around to various abodes, fiercely determined to hang on to her independence. At 86, she was still capable of answering the door and letting strangers into her home.

      She greeted Bryan and McLaughlin warmly. That is one quality that the citizens of Kinnick, New York remember about her. “She was the friendliest person you could ever meet,” one neighbor remembers. She also stood out as one of the few black people in town. Less than 7% of Rensselaer County residents are African American.

      After welcoming the two inside, she served them dinner and made beds for them, one on the couch and one in her spare bedroom. The interior of the home was in disarray, with cardboard boxes and furniture piled all around the living room and hallway. Fortunately for McLaughlin, Lucinda did not have a TV or receive a daily newspaper. Otherwise, she might have detected the fugitive in her presence. They chatted about their trip out west, and McLaughlin asked if she had any gasoline to spare. She had some in her truck, but that was it. She offered to drop them off at the nearest gas station in the morning.

      It was after 10:00 p.m. when Bryan and McLaughlin finished dinner. Lucinda said she had to get to bed. Bryan requested the couch. “I thought he could sneak up on me or do something crazy if I was in the bedroom,” he said. “At least in the living room, I had a way out of the house. That’s what I thought anyway.” The lights in the house went out around 11:00, with McLaughlin still adamant that they would wake up bright and early to get back on the road toward the Rockies.

      “I tried not to sleep. I could barely breathe at that point. My heart was racing just thinking about ways to get out of it. I couldn’t make a phone call, it would be too loud. I thought about running, but where would I go? I couldn’t just leave this old woman here. All this was running through my head. I was terrified. I didn’t know what to do.”

      Just after midnight, Bryan was able to pull out his cell phone. With its dwindling battery life, he texted his mother, father and girlfriend “911.” That was all he dared to say. He pocketed his phone as quickly as possible, praying that McLaughlin did not notice the screen’s glow coming from down the hall.

      Soon midnight turned to the early morning hours, and Bryan could not stay awake much longer. He would have to rest. An hour later, Bryan dozed off.

*     *     *

      The town of Bethlehem prides itself on preparedness. From blizzards dumping 20 inches or more of snow to sudden flooding from the Green River, residents have to be ready for anything. That includes encountering a murderer on the street.

      “I would’ve ran the second I saw him,” offers one resident, a slender woman in her mid-40s. “You’d run like heck if you were really that scared. Your adrenaline would kick in. That’s for sure.”

      “I would’ve taken him down,” says a local man in his early 60s, sporting a red flannel shirt and white beard. “How old was that kid? 22? I’ve seen pictures of him. He’s over six foot tall, right? I could’ve handled it.” I reminded him that McLaughlin stood 6’3”, which the man just shrugged off.

      Law enforcement had a more pragmatic approach. “You should not be aggressive or combative in a hostage situation,” Detective Peters informed me. “The first few seconds are really your only chance to escape or thwart the situation, and even then, it can be dangerous. The most important thing is to remain calm and don’t escalate the situation. Obviously, every case is a little different. This one especially.”

      In spite of the circumstance, the people of Bethlehem were still not ready to sympathize with the recent college grad. I asked them what they would do if they woke up to the sight of a murderer at the foot of their bed. “I would’ve probably pissed myself,” the woman admits with a laugh. “I don’t even want to think about it.”

      The man in his 60s, on the other hand, remained resolute. “I would not have been in that situation to begin with.”

*     *     *

      Bryan likened it to a bad dream. “I remember seeing the floor and I didn’t recognize it. There were all these boxes on the floor. I couldn’t remember where I was. That’s when it hit me.”

      He felt a hand on this shoulder. He started thrashing, kicking and throwing this arms around trying to get the man standing over him away. He then fell off the couch, hitting his head against a side table.

      “I was still out of it. I stopped fighting for a second. That’s when I heard him say, ‘Grab your coat, let’s go.’”

      McLaughlin was still standing over him, still putting on the gentle, friendly disposition he showed when they first met at the Bidgood office. The man already had his coat on with a small set of keys in his hand. He said that Lucinda allowed them to borrow her truck so that they could get gas. Still paralyzed with fear, Bryan felt he had no choice but to continue to play along.

      It was still dark outside. Bryan tried checking the time on his cell phone, but its battery was dead. He nervously put his coat and boots back on and navigated the items strewn across Lucinda’s living room floor. He made his way to the front door, McLaughlin following closely behind.

      Bryan noticed the doors to both bedrooms hanging open down the hallway. He could not see Lucinda through the crack in the open door.

      “That’s when I felt sick. I was going to vomit right there. I just had to run. I just had to.” Bryan unlocked the front door, opened it, then took off.

      He jumped outside the mobile home. He was met with the word “Freeze,” screamed at the top of a patrolman’s lungs. Four police cruisers were sitting at the end of Lucinda’s driveway. Officers stood behind them with their guns drawn. Bryan threw his hands up, stumbled down the steps and landed face first on the driveway.

      McLaughlin jumped off the concrete steps and began running. One of the officers fired two rounds at the fugitive. They hit the side of the house. McLaughlin turned the corner and ran out into the field. Three of the officers gave chase as McLaughlin trudged through the snow on the way to the forest. At the edge of the woods, he was finally tackled and apprehended by the police.

      The officers then entered the mobile home, and discovered Lucinda Oney unconscious in her bed. She was announced dead on arrival at the Southwestern Vermont Medical Center less than hour later. The cause of death was strangulation.

THE INTERROGATION

      Bryan complied with the police as he was handcuffed and stowed in the back of a police cruiser. It was then he realized that he had urinated himself while lying on the ground. After being stowed in a holding cell at the New Haven Barracks, he politely asked if he could have a clean pair of pants. A female officer said she would go look for some.

      Two hours later, another officer led Bryan into an interrogation room. Another half-hour passed. Detectives Barry Peters and Bill Hammond entered. They asked Bryan about what had happened over the last 24 hours. He explained how he ran into McLaughlin after the expo in Burlington, how knew each other from work, and how he did not know how to respond to his insistence on a spontaneous ski vacation out west. The detectives asked if he had any opportunity to run or call the police sooner. Bryan said he did not. He neglected to mention the “911” text message he sent to his parents and girlfriend, which led police to their location.

      Detective Peters then stated, “It doesn’t look good for you, Bryan.” He took the young man through his many failures to stop McLaughlin earlier. He could have ran after their initial meeting in downtown Burlington. He could have stopped at the New Haven Barracks as they were driving south on Route 7. He could stopped for gas and asked the station attendant to call the police. He said that all of these actions were grounds for a felony charge of aiding and abetting.

      Then there was Lucinda Oney. He informed that Ms. Oney was dead, and his actions could result in a second degree murder charge. Bryan started to sob.

      “There’s no getting around that you had a hand in this,” Peters declared. He urged Bryan to sign a confession to the aiding and abetting charge. Bryan refused.

      “What was I supposed to do?” Bryan pleaded. “You weren’t there. I was scared. I didn’t know what to do. I just graduated college. I don’t know what to do. What was I supposed to do? I had nothing to do with this. I swear on my mother’s life, I had nothing to do with this.”

      Bryan and the two detectives remained locked in the room until noon. Their talk stalled after Bryan asked to speak with a lawyer.

      A few hours earlier, in another interrogation room just a few yards away, McLaughlin confessed to the murders of his family and Lucinda Oney. He stated that he acted alone and had taken Bryan Hale hostage. He affirmed that Bryan had nothing to do with any of the crimes, that he was just “angry,” and that he was ready to face the punishment for his actions.

      When I asked if the five-hour interrogation with Bryan was necessary, Detective Peters said that the police must do their “due diligence.”

      “When it comes to these kinds of cases, you have it approach it from every angle,” Peters said. “One of the things we’re trained to do is to always ask why, and everything that came up after the murders raised a lot of whys. We just wanted to see where it would lead us.”

      Detective Hammond had a different perspective. “I could tell he had never been in trouble before. He told us the whole truth. That’s how I could tell he was a good kid and never got into trouble. We didn’t need to be there for a couple of hours. That came up in our review. We got a different approach now. We also should’ve gotten him new pants. It started to stink in there.”

      Bryan was ultimately released to his parents, who drove down to New Haven to pick up their son. The state’s attorney’s office ultimately declined to press charges for aiding and abetting and second degree murder against Bryan, citing McLaughlin’s confession and a lack of evidence.

*     *     *

      When Bryan returned home to Bethlehem that afternoon, the questions didn’t stop. Rumors spread quickly, with the consensus that Bryan had to be involved. Maybe he wanted to protect his new friend. Others speculated at it was a life insurance scam. The duo needed money after many months of unemployment. One of the more bizarre theories is that the two had become lovers and intended to escape the Rocky Mountains to start a new life together. The wife, mother-in-law and children became collateral damage in some kind of homosexual thrill killing.

      While the folks in Bethlehem were suspicious of Bryan, the residents of Kinnick, New York were outraged. They concluded that Lucinda Oney would still be alive had it not been for Bryan’s inaction, and they demanded that he be charged for second degree murder. A few residents flooded Bryan’s Facebook and Twitter accounts with angry missives. The last one sent before Bryan deleted both accounts came on April 8th, 2013. It was simply a picture of Ms. Oney with a statement that today would have been her 90th birthday. Some residents wrote letters addressed to Bryan’s house, and another filed a civil suit against the young man on behalf of the Oney family. The case was thrown out.

      “I don’t know how we put up with it for so long,” Bryan’s father told me. “Just all the stares we would get when we went to the grocery store or when we went out to eat. Everyone around here used to be really friendly, you know. You could talk to anyone and they would give you the time of day. Now? Nobody will say a word to us. They would stop and stare like we were some kind of freaks. I would try to go up and talk to them and they would run away. It was so bizarre.”

      “There was nowhere else we could go,” Dawn added. “I mean, the church was great. They were very supportive. But you know, that was it. We decided enough is enough.”

      The Hale family had also had enough of the state troopers now constantly appearing just outside their home. Typically, only one unit would work the beat in Bethlehem, a town where there had been no violent crimes since 2003. Now cruisers were following Bryan to and from work. They shadowed him whenever he stepped outside the house.

      “I tried to not let it bother me,” Bryan says. “I thought I could just keep my head down and ignore it, but I couldn’t. The police are always in the corner of my eye. No matter where I went, there was a cop car parked close by.” The Vermont State Police declined to comment if extra surveillance was placed on Bryan following McLaughlin’s capture.

      At the end of his 90-day contract with B.I.T., Bryan packed up his stuff moved into his girlfriend’s apartment, despite their parents’ wishes. A month later, he found work as a Research Assistant at the university. They split up a few months later, and Bryan has lived in Somerville ever since.

THE RELEASE

      A prosecutor once told me that there are no winners in murder cases. The Johnson family lost a daughter. The McLaughlin family lost their son and their grandchildren. The Kinnick community lost Lucinda Oney. And Bryan Hale lost whatever feeling of safety and peace he had before the murders. There is only losing.

      My intention was never to wallow in or exacerbate the sadness surrounding their loss. But I thought it would be possible to help Bryan. As my research went on and this story took shape over the last two years, I wanted to relieve him of the stomach pains he experienced every night, of the fear and guilt he still feels over what has happened. I wanted to prove to the people of Bethlehem and Kinnick and the Vermont State Police that he had nothing to do with these terrible crimes. I wanted to absolve him of any involvement. Sadly, I found that there was no way for me to do that. Only one man could.

*     *     *

      On February 23rd, 2012, Thomas McLaughlin pleaded guilty to the murders of his family and Lucinda Oney. The judge sentenced him to five life sentences without the possibility of parole. And as a violent offender, he would be required to serve his time in a maximum security prison.

      Because there are no max facilities in Vermont, he was assigned to the Daniel D. McWayne Detention Facility in Providence, Rhode Island. It is a maximum security center privately operated by Connell Corrections. I wrote McLaughlin a letter requesting an interview. A few months later, he wrote back. He agreed to sit down with me. The warden, however, denied the request.

      At least once a month for the next year, I wrote to the warden pleading my case for some time with McLaughlin. I said that his admission of wrongdoing would bring closure and healing to those affected by this tragedy. The interview could also serve to bolster his rehabilitation and show his reformation back into a model citizen. I could also bring to light how humanely he was being treated at the facility. In 2009, prisoner Hung Nguyen died under mysterious circumstances at McWayne. Accusations began to crop up that he was brutalized, resulting in his death. I said that this interview could help rehabilitate the image of the prison.

      The warden wrote me a very angry response affirming the quality of his corrections. He told me to never write to him again.

      In April 2016, a new administration was brought in at McWayne, along with a new warden. He permitted the interview.

      The sky was a flat gray as I drove through Providence. It had been drizzling all day. There was little life in the neighborhoods I passed, with few people on the sidewalks and even fewer businesses open.

      When I was just a few blocks away from the prison, I received a call from the warden’s administrative assistant. She informed me that my interview with McLaughlin would not be taking place.

      At count that morning, McLaughlin did not step out of his cell. Officers entered his cell to find he was unresponsive in his bed and not breathing. He was rushed to the nearest hospital, with responders finding signs of an overdose from anti-depressants and opioids, a deadly mixture. He was pronounced dead a few hours later. He was 44 years old.

      I informed Bryan of what had happened. He did not say anything for several seconds. A moment later, he replied with a statement that - regardless of their perspective on this crime - I think most everyone can agree with.

      “I hope he rots in hell.”

THE END