Ex-employee claims her firing due to noting inadequate response
By Michael Donoghue, Vermont News First
A former Washington County Mental Health Services employee who says she was fired after reporting the mishandling of a troubled patient later charged in a double homicide has filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against the agency.
Jordan Houston filed the lawsuit against Washington County Mental Health Services Inc. in Vermont Superior Court in Montpelier on Friday.
The case centers on the lack of response by Washington County Mental Health to Matthew Gomes, 29, of Montpelier who is accused of killing his parents on Nov. 15, 2024 and has a history of mental health issues, officials said.
Montpelier Police said they found Jerry Gomes, 77, and Mary Gomes, 60, dead outside their home at 579 Gallison Hill Road about 11:30 a.m.
Autopsies determined they died from blunt force trauma, and the manner of the deaths was homicide.
He has pleaded not guilty to two counts of aggravated murder.
Gomes made self-incriminating statements during and after his 911 call to Montpelier Police that he was having a mental health crisis and had killed his parents, officials said at the time.
Police said Gomes was well-known to law enforcement. He was a graduate of Montpelier High, where he played sports, and attended Castleton University where he majored in psychology.
Gomes also was known to have mental health issues, but Houston’s lawsuit paints a picture of questionable practices by Washington County Mental Health based in Barre.
“Plaintiff was fired by the Defendant because she insisted on reporting accurate information about actions that related to a double homicide by a patient,” the lawsuit notes.
“Clear and compelling public policy in Vermont, and indeed elsewhere, requires mental health providers to accurately and truthfully report facts as known to them, within established channels, especially when the information may be relevant to the investigation of a homicide,” the lawsuit said.
Attempts to reach Elizabeth Sightler, the executive director of Washington County Mental Health, for comment were unsuccessful.
Montpelier attorney Rob Halpert, the longtime general counsel for WCMH, said Friday afternoon a trial lawyer will be retained to defend the lawsuit. He said a preliminary review indicates it is “grossly inaccurate.”
Halpert added, “We will defend vigorously.”
Washington County Mental Health will have 21 days to file a written response at the superior courthouse in Montpelier.
“Our deepest sympathy is with the family,” Halpert said in a phone interview. He said it was unfortunate that the case will be aired in public.
Authorities familiar with the case said shortly after the bodies were found that there had been reports Washington County mental health officials were asked to do an intervention on Gomes, but did not detain him and may not have followed through in the case. Two days later the homicides were reported.
Houston singled out a couple of WCMH employees and notes that earlier concerns about their conduct were never properly addressed by management, the lawsuit notes.
They include Gary Gordon, an unlicensed Qualified Mental Health Professional, who reported to Karen Kurrle, a master’s level psychologist, the lawsuit claims.
Houston is licensed to practice psychotherapy and was employed by the defendant starting June 20, 2010 until she was terminated on Jan. 13, 2025, court paper note.
Her dismissal came one month after she sent a letter to Sightler, the executive director, the lawsuit said. It followed a lack of action by lower management, she said.
Houston said Montpelier Police called her the day of the homicide, a Friday, to say officers were headed to the Gomes home to check on a report that he had killed his parents. She said when she mentioned the report to Gordon, his response was, “I really hope it’s not true, because I took a few calls from his mom on Wednesday and I didn’t go out,” the lawsuit said.
While she waited for the Montpelier Police emergency dispatcher to call back, Gordon repeated he did not respond despite Gomes’ mother calling and requesting a response.
Gordon said he didn’t because Gomes was unhappy with past involuntary hospitalizations known as “Emergency Examinations” and often called an EE.
“He still had some strong feelings about the last time we EE’d him, and he was already agitated, so I didn’t want to make it worse,” Houston quotes Gordon in the lawsuit.
Houston said she then spoke to Luanna Putney, an administrative assistant, who took calls from the mother on Nov. 13, 2024 and kept a handwritten log of those calls. Putney “gasped audibly” when told what had happened with the Gomes family.
Putney stated the mother had called “so many times” on Wednesday and that Gordon had failed to respond, the lawsuit said. Putney then shared her written logs of the calls, it said.
THE INVESTIGATION
Houston said she was deeply troubled by Gordon’s failure to respond to the mother’s call and document the conversations and ”believed that these egregious errors were consistent with a pattern of performance failures that she had been reporting to her superiors for some time.”
She said she believed the appropriate action for her was to seek ethical counseling from Jackie Jones, a manger, the lawsuit said.
Houston said on the following Monday she began to compile her own clinical notes for the record. Meanwhile Kurrle reached out to set up a meeting and “go over the time line” before the notes were logged in, the lawsuit said.
The Plaintiff responded to Kurrle that she would move forward before the meeting.
“I’ll be submitting my note tonight before I can be told to lie or not put anything that I find clinically & ethically relevant, so the timeline will be there,” Houston wrote
She added that “the concerns I’ve presented to Jackie were also presented to you & HR months ago,” she wrote. Houston also said she would be glad to meet as long as “Jackie can be present too.”
PAST PROBLEMS
Houston said in her lawsuit that “Over the course of her employment Plaintiff has witnessed multiple incidents of abusive and harassing behavior by Gordon aimed at other employees, as well as other lapses in judgement, errors, and other work-related problems relating to his performance of his job.”
Houston went on to say, “From her observation and based on reports from others, Gordon’s performance has deteriorated over the past five years, including falling asleep at work, being forgetful, and other similar behavior.”
She reported her concerns about Gordon’s behavior and lapses to her superiors, including Kurrle, but no action has been taken to address the problems identified, the lawsuit said.
Gordon and Kurrle are not named as defendants in the civil lawsuit.
Gordon and Kurrle did not respond to phone and text messages seeking their comments about the lawsuit.
Houston, a New Hampshire native attended Franklin Pierce University and Norwich University, where she graduated with a degree in psychology. Houston, who has been in Vermont since 2007, also has a master’s degree in clinical mental health from the University of Southern New Hampshire.
She is seeking reinstatement to her position and both compensatory and punitive damages from a jury trial.
Houston also is asking the court to award reasonable legal fees for her lawyers, Tim Belcher of Barre and Joshua Simonds of Burlington.
The double homicide case was the third time in two months in Vermont that an adult son was implicated in the death of one or more parents, police said.
Three family members died in a case in Pawlet on Sept. 15. Meanwhile in West Enosburgh a father was killed with a baseball bat and his wife severely beaten on Oct. 4.
Their sons have been arrested and charged in cases in Rutland and Franklin Counties.
The Montpelier case came one day after the UVM Medical Center announced it wants to close its mental health facility in Berlin as a possible cost-saving measure.
