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By Mike Donoghue, Vermont News First
A Franklin County man, who was a person of interest shortly after an elderly Enosburgh woman was reported missing last week, was arrested on a charge of aggravated murder Thursday night, officials said.
Darren Martell, 23, of St. Albans is scheduled for arraignment in Vermont Superior Court in St. Albans on Friday afternoon.
Vermont State Police said Martell is responsible for killing Roberta Martin, 82, who was reported missing from her Butternut Hollow Road residence in Enosburgh last week.
State police arrested Martell on the murder Thursday night while he was in custody at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans, where he has been jailed since Monday on an unrelated felony charge of lewd and lascivious conduct.
Nobody had been willing to post the $500 bail imposed in the lewd conduct case.
A judge on Thursday night ordered Martell held without bail on the aggravated murder charge pending his court arraignment.
State Police have worked closely on the case for nine days with the office of Franklin County State’s Attorney Bram Kranichfeld, which will be prosecuting the case.
If convicted, Martell faces a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
State Police were alerted at 11:55 a.m. July 17 after family members were unable to contact Martin and they reached out to neighbors, who found suspicious circumstances at the home. The air conditioner had been removed from a window and was still running when it was found on the porch, police said. Duct tape also was found at the scene and the normally very neat home had been disrupted, officials said.
The family had last talked to Martin by phone about 11:30 p.m. July 16, state police said. Martin was known to be in good health both physically and mentally and her disappearance was considered “suspicious.”
Troopers were soon actively pursuing leads, and special teams including VSP’s Canine Unit and the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Program (drones) were involved in the search.
The VSP Major Crime Unit, led by Detective Sgt Isaac Merriam, took control of the case and Martell soon became a person of interest, officials said.
A massive search effort was conducted in the following days, including on Friday when state police executed a court-issued search warrant at a house and property adjacent to Martin’s home.
Martell had been living with the residents at the house next door to Martin.
Dozens of personnel from search and rescue teams with the Vermont State Police and additional agencies continued to cover more than 1,500 acres on foot around the Martin home.
Police said they found human remains – believed to be Martin – about 11 a.m. Sunday in a wooded area off Sand Hill Road in Enosburgh. The area, which included a burn pit, is close to Martin’s home.
The area was secured until members of the State Crime Scene Search Team could process the area. The remains were later taken to the office of Vermont’s Chief Medical Examiner in Burlington for confirmation of the identity and an autopsy.
The autopsy confirmed Martin’s identity, but no immediate cause and manner of death was announced by the doctor, state police said.
It was after the finding of the remains that state police said publicly said they were searching for Martell as a person of interest.
Detectives first observed Martell about noon Monday in a wooded area near the St. Albans Town School. As detectives approached Martell they observed him masturbating along the edge of a public walking path between the school and the 55-plus community located on Gricebrook Road, police said.
When Martell spotted detectives walking toward him, he ran into the woods. Additional detectives, uniform troopers and St. Albans City Police officers responded to the area to help search for Martell and secure the area.
The St. Albans Town School went into “lock down” as law enforcement searched the area around the building. Martell was located a short time later and brought to the state police barracks in St. Albans, officials said. He was eventually arrested on the lewd conduct charge by a detective with the Vermont Drug Task Force, which was assisting on the case.
Investigators said at the time the arrest and lewd conduct charge were unrelated to the Martin investigation, but initially had said they were looking for him as part of the Martin investigation.
The Vermont State Police did encourage members of the public to be vigilant as the investigation unfolded – and to continue. Although police said there was no known evidence at the time to suggest the community was at risk, people were urged – as always – to take reasonable precautions, including doors to their homes and vehicles and remaining aware of their surroundings.
Among the other agencies assisting in the case are the Vermont Department of Fish & Wildlife, New England K9 Search and Rescue, and the Upper Valley Wilderness Response Team. The Enosburgh Fire Department and Enosburgh Rescue provided logistical support and assistance.
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Categories: Crime
Another real he-man male. Couldn’t he have found a MORE vulnerable victim to squeeze the life out of in order to satiate his sickening & diabolical impulses before he attempted to crawl his way back to the drug den, undoubtably state-supported “home” of his friends to eat more horse tranquilizer?
The VT legislators’ hands gush blood as they allow their constituents to be brutally beaten, sexually assaulted, and murdered by the most wretched criminals they intentionally attract to this once-safe state as they then do all they can to further coddle & financially support them at your expense. Motels for all! They’re “free”!!!!!
My, the role you Communists play as though grand humanitarians – the death toll you encourage climbs, and you remain intentionally ignorant as your eternal fate becomes sealed for the carnage you have brought to Vermont.
We are truly lost, as this person so vividly demonstrates. We are creating our own problems, luckily, it’s a simple solution for us to fix, we only need to change our direction and focus.
When we get back to the basics and look toward what is right and true, we can turn this ship around. We are looking for love and success in all the wrong places.
TGBTG
Darren Martell, 23, ” If ” convicted, faces a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole……………how about a public hanging for this ” POS ” !!
If convicted of killing Roberta Martin, 82, what he needs is to spend 10 minutes in a room with family members of Mrs. Martin, then justice will be served, and we won’t have to pay tax dollars keeping this “POS” alive for years, but knowing Vermont’s judicial system he’ll probably get a suspended sentence and back on the street.
Oh, I almost forgot, this “POS” couldn’t post a $500 bail for his felony charge of lewd and lascivious conduct…………………. St . Albans should be proud of this animal.
For all those who think Evil is a quaint old notion, here you are, 23 years from birth to killing a neighbor. Return the death penalty if the evidence warrants it and there will be NO recidivism.
I just dunno anymore… I’m not even comfortable becoming friends with coworkers. I see their FB posts and all of them have emotional outbursts and complicated hysterical lives going on a daily basis. WTF is wrong with so many humans living in this uber-digital world of abundance, yet it’s not making them happy??? What drives people into becoming zombies in the USA???
When you understand that these websites are perhaps the most powerful propaganda tools ever invented, and they are being uses as such, it starts to make more sense. It’s not a mistake that all this is happening, it’s the plan, it’s the first of but a series of events used in subversion, subversion of a people and country. It is as old as humankind; this has been playing out for 10 thousand years.
Deception, Destruction and Divisions are the hall mark of the trade.
It’s all part and parcel of becoming a narcissist, a path person, who thinks all they are perfect and have the answer for everything. Classically they were known as fools, we are raising generations of fools, men and women, on purpose, by design.
We need to change, that is the issue.
This is a tragedy.
This is a Vermont tragedy.
This is a Vermont tragedy, happening across our state on a regular basis.
Vermont is experiencing tragic consequences of our leadership and whom we follow, whom we praise and where we find our truth and wisdom.
We had adopted big city policies that are bringing big city problems to our state, the most epic of these are drug dealing, criminal activities, sex trafficking and the denigration of human life.
While we don’t have people locked up project housing, we do have families, communities and people broken, killed and in pain like a really bad yard sale, that experienced a flood or tornado in the process. This tragic event is but one example, in two weeks we’ll be seeing yet another example.
We teach our children that lust and sex are love.
We teach our children that you can take from the haves, we teach envy, we teach revenge.
We teach our children that life has no struggles.
We don’t teach our children how to cope with life’s struggles.
We teach our children they are right, and their parents are wrong.
We teach our children to protest and take the law into their own hands.
Just a couple of decades ago, everyone left their house unlocked.
Hell, Subaru owners were known for leaving their keys in the car!
The big news story was a cow got loose on Route 7.
We took Sundays off.
Our big drug crimes were smoking some weak herb.
We had small schools educating our children in Math, Science and Reading.
Until we recognize the changes nothing will happen.
Until we recognize we have created the problem, we can’t change it.
Until we come together in peace and harmony, we can’t get anything done.
Until we come together as a citizenry of Vermont, changing our direction and focus to those things that are true and loving, we’ll keep swilling around in the tragic results like this on a bi-weekly basis.
Vermont can do better.
We can do mush better.
TGBTG
2 Chronicles 7:14 “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
It’s a bit of a commitment and effort (sometimes), but keep a dog, (that’s at the very least the alarm system) and keep close at all times a weapon that can absolutely extinguish any threat and be proficient with it. It doesn’t hurt to have a tractor with a bucket to dump the offending assailant near where the ravens and coyotes can have access…no need to bother the authorities, their overworked and understaffed already.
Thank goodness we still have reporters like Mike Donoghue to write well researched and informative pieces about important stories like this in our community. There are not many journalists of this ilk left in the country, nevermind this state.
I will be locking the doors and hugging my loved ones tonight.
Re: If convicted, Martell faces a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The taxpayers get to house, clothe and feed this dirtbag for the rest of his life. I suggest bringing back the death sentence and use Fentanyl as the method of execution, there is plenty of it to go around for all these scumbags.
We, the pigeons of Vermont deserve to know this miscreant’s background. Referred to as a “St. Albans man”, is he actually from there or was he attracted to the area from afar by Vermont’s generous welfare programs? Was it Vermont’s growing reputation as devoid of common-sense law enforcement/prosecution and our general acceptance of deviant sexual behaviors that was the allure? If our progressive culture and reputation is bringing bad actors here, then that needs to be a deciding factor in the maintenance of these ways. If it is our culture of acceptance and tolerance to the unusual that is resulting in predation of the vulnerable, then those consequences need to be acknowledged by all, especially by those who vote to maintain it.
all information about this case must be released to the public/// i am sick of the words that it is under investigation////