New Hampshire man pleads innocent in court yesterday

by Guy Page

Joseph Ferlazzo killed his wife Emily by shooting her in the head, police said after an autopsy was performed yesterday. The 22-year-old woman died by a gunshot wound Saturday in Bolton. The murder occurred in a bus in which the couple were traveling in Vermont from their New Hampshire home, police say.

The couple – at one time residents of Essex Junction – were visiting Vermont for their first anniversary. After an argument, Joseph Ferlazzo, 41, shot Emily Ferlazzo in the head twice with a handgun and then put her body in the camper-bus bathroom, according to media reports of the police affidavit. Ferlazzo pleaded innocent to first-degree murder in a Burlington courtroom Wednesday.

The police investigation into Emily Ferlazzo’s disappearance became public Tuesday and developed quickly, with multiple press releases throughout the day culminating in a 9:30 PM media briefing at the St. Albans State Police Barracks.

Mrs. Ferlazzo’s family reported her disappearance to the Vermont State Police at about 7:15 p.m. Monday, Oct. 18. The Vermont State Police immediately began an investigation that has expanded from the Bolton area to include locations in Enosburg and St. Albans.

Joseph Ferlazzo reportedly told her family in New Hampshire that the couple had been staying at a vacation rental in Bolton. He advised they were in an argument while in their camper van traveling on the Bolton Valley Access Road at about 1 p.m. Saturday. He further stated that she had left the vehicle and began walking along U.S. Route 2. Mr. Ferlazzo told the family that he proceeded to a convenience store in Bolton, and when he returned to the area where he had last seen Mrs. Ferlazzo, she was gone.

By 1 pm Tueday afternoon, state police said the death was suspicious and that they were looking for Joseph Ferlazzo. An hour later, state police detectives located Joseph Ferlazzo at a convenience store in St. Albans, and he agreed to accompany troopers to the barracks. The couple’s missing dog, Remington, also was located unharmed at the home of a friend of Mr. Ferlazzo.

After Ferlazzo confessed to killing his wife in the bus, a subsequent court-ordered search of the bus at the VSP St. Albans Barracks uncovered human remains and other evidence that corroborated Joseph Ferlazzo’s account of the killing. The victim’s body was brought to the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office in Burlington for an autopsy yesterday to determine the cause and manner of death and to confirm identity.

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