A Newfane couple married 70 years died Friday, October 25 in a suicide-homicide, state police say. Their family said they were a devoted couple who “chose to die together as they’d lived together.”
The Chief Medical Examiner’s Office in Burlington on Monday, Oct. 28, 2024, completed autopsies on Blake Prescott, 91, and Helen Prescott, 88, a married couple who lived in the home on South Wardsboro Road where this incident occurred.
The medical examiner determined that Helen Prescott’s cause of death was gunshot wounds to the torso, and the manner of death is a homicide. The cause of Blake Prescott’s death was a gunshot wound to the chest, and the manner of death is a suicide.
The Prescott family asked the Vermont State Police to tell the public that Blake and Helen shared a lifetime of love and commitment to each other. “As a devoted couple of more than 70 years, who had recently experienced precipitously declining health, they chose to die together as they’d lived together,” the family said in a statement provided to the state police.
According to the Brattleboro Reformer, Blake Prescott was a retired physician who contributed opinion pieces to the Windham County daily newspaper. He is the author of a 2019 book called “Short Stories, Tall Tales, and Surprise Endings: An Armchair Map for Vicarious Adventure.” A garden with thousands of daffodils bloomed every spring at their home.