At least one, possibly both victims were homeless
by Guy Page
For the second time this year, a Vermonter was found dead after being dumped by a trash/recycling truck at a recycling center.
Sean Kelleher, 50, died Friday shortly after he was found unconscious on a recycling center conveyor belt in Williston, police say.
At 7 AM on Friday, June 16 Williston police and firefighters responded to the Chittenden Solid Waste District (CSWD) Materials Recycling Facility located at 357 Avenue C in Williston for a report of an unconscious individual.
Kelleher was declared dead upon arrival, and the death does not appear suspicious. He was found by Casella staff while working the sorting conveyor belt.
Kelleher is or was previously from the Burlington area, police say. In March, WCAX quoted a man identifying himself as Sean Kelleher living in a homeless encampment in Burlington, and urging city officials to turn the former YMCA into a city homeless shelter.
In January of this year, The body of Jessica Morehouse, 34, of Hartford, was dumped by a recycling truck into the waste stream at Casella’s White River Junction facility. The driver was unaware he was carrying her, police say.
“There has been some indication that she was unhoused and may have been sleeping in dumpsters to stay warm, the cardboard dumpsters,” acting Police Chief Scott Moody said.
The second apparent ‘dumpster death’ of a homeless Vermonter comes as the Vermont Legislature prepares tomorrow to vote on Gov. Phil Scott’s veto. The budget vote in May failed to get 100 votes (the number needed to override a veto) because 17 Democrat/Progressive lawmakers opposed the defunding of emergency housing in ‘homeless hotels.’
Categories: Police Reports
There is no reason for this! I am angered beyond words. Are we in denial of a housing shortage? I am in agreement we need to take care of whoever comes into this country, but please can we please take care of our own?? Why are we as a State being so extremely greedy? Every town owns some land, give it up and get some housing going. There is absolutely no sense here.
There was such a place decades ago. Most every town or county had “poor farms” LBJ and his great society put them off the map for it is far better for the government to toss them crumbs than give the poor a place to live and the ability to work the fatm and support themselves.
Vermont has a human compost law – passed in 2022. The State has made it abundantly clear they have no interest in perserving the sanctity of life or human decency. By doing so, they manifest the gruesome and harsh desecration of human life, dead or alive. The reaping of the harvest is here.
Sean u will be missed buddy. R.i.p