By Guy Page

Here’s what VDC has learned about Felix Bauckholt, the German native who was shot and killed in an encounter with Border Patrol on I-91 in Coventry, in which Border Patrol Agent David Maland also was shot and killed:

Felix Bauckholt is a former collegiate math competition winner, published author of mathematical research papers, and until last year was a New York City ‘quantitative trader’ for a large internatonal finance company – someone who, in the words of a college student who knew him, “uses math to beat the stock market.” His skills were so highly prized that the German national was working in the U.S. on a visa type given only to immigrants with “extraordinary ability.”

According to VDC sources in Vermont law enforcement and state government, Bauckholt was a subject of interest to Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) a week before the shooting. The same authorities also knew that Bauckholt and his two companions were armed with firearms.

Also, according to reporting by WCAX the male suspect in the shooting – identified elsewhere as Bauckholt – stayed at the Newport Inn and Suites for five days with the other suspect, a woman who was also a shooter and who is recovering from wounds at Dartmouth-Hitchcock. WCAX showed a clip from the hotel video surveillance system on its Wednesday, Jan. 21 news segment, “Suspects in fatal Border Patrol shooting were staying in Newport hotel.”

What our sources don’t know is why they were under investigation. The state government official said that federal authorities wanted to know, from local sources, whether Bauckholt’s presence had surfaced in the Northeast Kingdom.

Bauckholt’s involvement in the gunfight – which occurred after Border Patrol stopped the southbound blue Prius with North Carolina plates – is not clear, at least to local authorities speaking to VDC. “I don’t understand why he got involved in a gun fight,” the law enforcement official said. “I understand he did not start shooting but rather someone inside the vehicle did so.The dead person was not the shooter — at least at first.”

Given that HSI had been interested in him for days prior, it’s unlikely that the traffic stop was a random event. Also, VDC’s law enforcement source said the blue Prius with North Carolina plates was observed pulled over 30-45 minutes before the 3:15 PM shooting. The driver was seen talking outside of the car with a Border Patrol agent. If so, the shooting did not occur immediately after the car was pulled over. Something – the source doesn’t know what – clearly triggered the shooting a half an hour or more after the stop.

Immigration status

The law enforcement source stated that Bauckholt was in the United States on an immigration visa “issued to people who have extraordinary or unique or specialized skills.’ (An early press report that Bauckholt was an illegal immigrant was inaccurate and has been pulled from VDC and national news sites.)

An online search shows that U.S. Customs and Immigration issues O-1A immigration visas to “Individuals with an extraordinary ability in the sciences, education, business, or athletics.”

“Extraordinary ability in the sciences” certainly fits Bauckholt’s profile. Over the last few days, VDC has done a ‘deep dive’ into the internet for the only person identified as Felix Bauckholt – a college math whiz and, until last year, a New York city ‘quantitative trader’. Bauckholt’s job with Tower Research Capital was confirmed by the Vermont law enforcement official who would only say the information came from a ‘reliable source.’

An online profile states that “Felix Bauckholt is a Quantitative Trader at Tower Research Capital based in New York City, New York. Previously, Felix was a Quantitative Technologist at Radix Trading and also held positions at University of Waterloo. Felix received a Bachelor of Mathematics degree from University of Waterloo.”

Young math/computer genius

Bauckholt’s math/computer genius emerged as early as 2014, when he was declared a winner of a German high school national computer skills competition. In 2015 he enrolled in the University of Waterloo in Ontario, which according to fellow Waterloo student Carl Zhou has a very strong math/computer science program.

While at Waterloo, Bauckholt was known to Zhou as friendly and helpful to other students.

“He was very friendly. He got along,” Zhou said in a Wednesday night phone conversation with VDC. When asked if he had any political, religious, or social axe to grind, Zhou said, “not that I’m aware of.” In the forward to his thesis, a fellow student thanked Bauckholt and others for participating in fun late-night board game sessions.

Above all Bauckholt was a ‘star,’ a high honors Dean’s list student who won a gold medal in a collegiate math olympiad.

According to Zhou – now a successful young finance industry professional who has not had contact with Bauckholt since college – becoming a ‘Quant’ was a natural for a math/computer whiz like Bauckholt. So was receiving an O-1A visa. Average students don’t get offered visas like that. But they do go to someone of uniquely high value to the finance industry. Bauckholt got one. If his earnings matched the industry standard, he went on to earn big money as a Quant.

What is a Quant?

Quant is shorthand for a professional in the field of quantitative finance, described thusly on openquant.com: “There exists one subset of finance that tends to get often overlooked – quantitative finance. Unlike its sibling disciplines, quantitative finance tends to be highly technical, usually involving the application of software programs and mathematical models to capitalize on advantageous opportunities in the trading markets.”

Published math research papers

Software and math models were right up Bauckholt’s alley. In 2018, while still a student at Waterloo, he co-published a paper called On the approximability of the stable marriage problem with one-sided ties, which is what it sounds like – studying marriage through the lens of mathematics. Here’s the most comprehensible part of the abstract (for whatever it’s worth):

‘The classical stable marriage problem asks for a matching between a set of men and a set of women with no blocking pairs, which are pairs formed by a man and a woman who would both prefer switching from their current status to be paired up together. When both men and women have strict preferences over the opposite group, all stable matchings have the same cardinality, and the famous Gale-Shapley algorithm can be used to find one.”

VDC called and emailed FBI communications Special Agent Sarah Ruane last night seeking more information about Bauckholt. As of this afternoon she has not responded.

Federal authorities can’t hold suspects forever without an indictment, so it’s likely that more information about the woman in custody will emerge sometime in the next month, a source said.