A death on Elliot Street - The Commons

2 NEWS The Commons • July 2009 The Commons • July 2009 NEWS 3Contradictory neighborhoodElliot Street tragedyCourt documents, friends’ posts offer a harrowing chronology of a confrontationBy Thelma O’Brienand Clara Rose ThorntonThe CommonsBRATTLEBORO—“If we lookat the history of Elliot Street,” sayslongtime resident Fran LynggaardHansen, “there is a lot to learn.”Elliot Street might have developeda reputation early on as the setting fora rough-and-tumble working-classimmigrant culture, a reputation thatwasn’t exactly helped by the bar scenein the 1960s and 1970s.“In the 1960s and ’70s the area wasnotorious for Alice’s Restaurant anda bigger bar, the Village Barn, in thefar back of Harmony parking lot,”Lynggaard Hansen says. “Druggiescame from the tri-state area, and youcould buy anything available just outsidethe door.”While Lynggaard Hansen believesthe street used to be more dangerousthan it is now, attitudes about thatsection of downtown are pretty wellingrained and stem from the standardattitudes about the poor and thehomeless.“Our town really is no different thanany other,” she said. “I think the drugproblem has gotten worse but pointingfingers of blame at certain peopleis not the answer.”J. Timothy O’Connor Jr., 73, callsthe Elliot Street neighborhood of hisyouth “a nice community, a nice residentialarea. We took care of eachStudy your passion.At UI&U you can design your B.A. program around yourown interests and ideas—to integrate your education intoyour own work life and personal goals.Offering:802.257.9411888.828.8575www.tui.eduBrattleboroCenter@tui.eduother when tragedies happened. Wedidn’t ask the government for help.”O’Connor, whose grandfathermoved to town from Putney in 1910and eventually settled on Elliot Street,has a benevolent view of the citywhere he’s lived most of his life. Heconsiders moving back and settling inBrattleboro with his wife, Martha, aftergraduating from Georgetown Lawin 1961 “one of the best choices I’veever made.” He’s practiced law hereever since, currently concentratingon real estate.For 12 years, O’Connor served as astate representative, and he currentlyholds the post of town moderator.His memories gravitate to the senseof community his family gained fromneighbors and friends including TomLynch, town planner, and the Bakerfamily, well-known merchants in thecity.O’Connor recalls the immigrantpopulation on Elliot Street as mixed.“They were Irish, they were Frenchand most of them worked for EsteyOrgan and at the Vinton Paper Mill.It was always a nice area.”He is aware of changes in certaincity neighborhoods but he can’tquite put his finger on the causes, althoughhe’s seen the complicationsof family life.“I did quite a few domestic relationscases when I was first practicing,” hesaid. “But when I went home at nightI started worrying about everybody• Come to campus one weekend a month.• Do the rest of your studying from home.• Earn your degree while continuing to meetyour work and family commitments.B.A. • B.S. • M.A. • M.Ed. • Ph.D.M.A. in Psychology • Psy.D.else’s children so I began doing otherthings.”O’Connor thinks everybody’s toobusy now. “We forget about what’simportant. Brattleboro has done somany things, providing activities forkids, and I am impressed by the Boysand Girls Club on Flat Street.” Hepoints out programs that are gearedtoward the poor. “You know they dofood stamps and meals at school.” Hestill believes the opportunities for kidsare there.“There are those who can’t adapt towhat I think are normal things like goingto work every day, doing your joband having some consistent activity,”he said, adding that obeying the lawwas high on his list.“Youngsters need discipline. WhenI was young we had a curfew at nightat 9 or 10,” agreeing that the city cannotimpose that kind of curfew undercurrent conditions.UI&U:Brattleboro’sBest KeptSecret!He believes the law must be enforced.“What happened on ElliotStreet, the murder, was a tragic thingand no matter what you do some tragedieshappen,” he said.Property ownersOn the day of the murder, a communitydiscussion on iBrattleborooffered a number of anecdotes aboutElliot Street and violence. “I haveseen in that area drug use in broaddaylight,” one person wrote; anotherrecalled when “someone was thrownthrough a plate glass window on Elliotlast summer.”Yet a talk with landlords and propertymanagers in this heavily commercialand moderately residential areaof Elliot Street points to a negation ofthis stereotype and toward the lesscondemning idea that this could havehappened anywhere in Brattleboro.Jason Cooper has owned ByronCorporation since its founding in 1982,and has overseen the company’s eightresidential properties on Elliot Streetin the area in question since they werepurchased in 1992.When asked if he’d seen anychanges in the neighborhood duringthis time, he said, “I’ve seen a verydramatic change, without question.“When I first came into town,”Cooper explained, “the group ofbuildings that I currently have includeda restaurant that was boardedup and had been foreclosed on atbank auction; the property acrossthe street was an awful building thatwas boarded up, which the bank hadrepossessed and was trying to giveaway; and there were several otherbuildings on this street that were completedisasters.“Over the 15-plus years that I’vebeen involved, this street has madedramatic changes and is much, muchbetter than it had been. The buildingshave been fixed up. Most of theapartments that had the worst possiblepeople in them and had the worstpossible landlords not taking care ofthem—those people are all gone. Andthe street is just day-and-night differentthan it had been.”Cooper admits that there have beensome drug-related issues that persist,but maintains that his and other entitieshave diligently whittled these incidentsdown.“Back in the earlier years, in theearly-to-mid 1990s, we definitely hadproblems with some tenants whowere involved in drug activity, andthe police were involved. Wheneverwe have a tenant like that, we do whateverwe can to the limit of the law toremove them as quickly as possible.We take very good care of our tenantsand we will not accept that sortof behavior.“But it’s not necessarily limited tothat street — from time to time thathappens,” Cooper continued. “No matterhow carefully we screen a tenantROGER KATZ/SPECIAL TO THE COMMONSThe BushnellBlock on ElliotStreet, with itsneighborhoodstore andapartments,was demolishedto make way forthe BrattleboroTransportationCenter in theearly 2000s.— we’ll do police checks, backgroundchecks, credit checks, etc. — usuallywe can get a pretty good idea of whatkind of person we’re dealing with, butnot always; it’s not perfect.“We have made improvements tothe neighborhood by making surethat we rent to the kind of peoplethat I would want to have as neighbors,and I would want to live with,and who I want my tenants to haveas neighbors.”Chris Hart has been the executivedirector of the Brattleboro HousingAuthority since 1995, an agency thatoperates a large, 62-unit high-riseapartment complex on the samestreet as the incident in question.Of the five properties managed bythe housing authority, the high-rise isone of only two located downtown andis the only one situated prominentlyon a street, as the others are either insecluded areas of West Brattleboroor “tucked away,” as Hart describes.Yet she does not see any differencein number or nature of complaintsacross the five properties.“Where the high-rise is has beenfairly stable, especially since the[Windham] Land Trust took overthe Spring Street buildings,” she said.“It’s pretty quiet. Our folks have notregistered a lot of complaints aboutbeing bothered; we’ve had minorvandalism in our parking lots, whichhas been about the same as vandalismwe’ve had at our other housingdevelopments.“The only complaint that we occasionallyget is [when] someone isin the building [who] shouldn’t be,”Hart continued. “And usually, whenwe investigate, we find that it wassomeone there to visit a tenant [andwas] buzzed in at the door. At onepoint, we had someone sleeping inthe lobby of the high-rise, but we’vealso had people found to be sleepingin other community rooms, so that’snot unique to the high-rise. It rarelyhappens in our properties, but it happensat all of them.”Although, when pressed aboutElliot Street’s reputation, she replied,“The only thing that we have heard onoccasion from tenants in the high-riseis, ‘Oh, people on Elliot Street — it’s arougher crowd.’ ”In response to the issue of thestreet’s reputation, Cooper said, “Thatkind of crime? I haven’t heard anyonesay, ‘That’s Elliot Street.’ That’s notthe attitude at all.”That kind of activity, he says, “couldjust as easily have happened in frontof the co-op or the High Grove parkinglot or in the Harmony lot, it couldhave happened on Main Street—anywherein town that people hang out.”“[This] was just the place wherethose people happened to be hangingout when that confrontation happened,”Cooper says.By Jeff PotterThe CommonsBRATTLEBORO—TravisSprague of Dummerstonbegan his night hangingout with his friends on ElliotStreet, hardly expecting that by theend of the night his older brother,David T. Snow, would die in his arms.Police reports and affidavits fromthat night, along with memoriesposted on MySpace and Facebook bySnow’s family and friends, paint a poignanttimeline of a senseless tragedy.In the early morning hours of June15, Andrew Everett Sheets, 41, a convictedfelon with alcohol on his breathand cocaine in his bloodstream, cameup to Sprague, 18, and his friends repeatedly,asking the youths for moneyso he could buy cocaine.At one point, Sheets went into theWeathervane Music Hall at 19 ElliotSt., later emerging. Some guys in theWeathervane ripped me off, he said,mounting his bicycle.As a car pulled out of the Harmonyparking lot, Sheets pulled his bike infront of the vehicle. You ripped me off,he told the car’s occupants as he brandisheda small switchblade. As the cartook off, Sprague saw Sheets stab oneof the tires on the driver’s side.As Brattleboro Police OfficerJoshua Lynde, working the third shift,talked with a group of youths by theTransportation Center just down thestreet, Sheets came up to Lynde. Thepeople in the car took my money, Sheetstold the officer. Lynde took off and beganlooking for the vehicle.Lynde soon returned and foundSheets. I was unable to locate the subjects,Lynde told Sheets. You can gohome if you want, and I’ll follow upwith you later.I’m not going anywhere, Sheets toldthe officer. I want my money.As soon as the officer left the scene,Sheets approached Sprague and hisfriends. Are you the guys who rippedme off? Sheets asked them.Just calm down and leave us alone,Sprague told Sheets, who threatenedto beat him up, showing him the knife.David Snow lived at 15 Elm St.with Judy G. Brown, 23, who hadagreed to marry him the previous day,and their friend, Tanya J. Currier, 24.Around 2 a.m., Snow and Curriertook the dog for a walk around theirusual loop: down Elm Street to FlatStreet and over to the parking garage,then up the stairs to Elliot Street andback home.Snow and Currier walked out ofthe Transportation Center onto ElmStreet, just in time to see Sprague, hisbrother, arguing with Sheets. Curriercould see Sheets holding somethingbut could not tell what it was.Snow came over. Calm down andhave a seat, he told Sheets.Sheets refused. I’m going to fighthim, he said, shoving Snow in thechest.Snow stepped between Sheets andhis brother.Sheets came at Snow with the knife,cutting his shirt.Accounts vary on what happenednext. Sprague told police that Snowswung back at Sheets, while anotherwitness, Philip D. Paquette, 18, saidSnow stepped back and yelled at hisassailant.Sheets then stabbed Snow in theneck.I told you, he said.As Currier turned and kept walkingtoward home with the dog, she heardSnow yell, I’ve been stabbed.Back home, as Brown began towonder why the dog walking wastaking so long, she heard a commotionon Elliot Street and left to checkon Snow’s and Currier’s well being.As she walked from Elm to Elliot,she came upon Currier and the dog.Dave’s been stabbed, Currier said asBrown rushed to the crowd.Officer Lynde and his colleague,Officer Peter DiMarino, had continuedlooking for the car that Sheetshad described about ten minutes before.Lynde returned to Elliot Streetto suggest to Sheets that he come tothe police station and file a report.Lynde returned to the scene momentsafter the stabbing, at 2:44 a.m.As the officer got out of the cruiser,Sprague approached. This guy juststabbed my brother.Drop the knife, the officer said.Sheets dropped the weapon andput his hands up. Lynde radioed formedical response. Lynde turnedback to Sheets, who got down on theground. Lynde kicked the knife outof reach, cuffed Sheets, and put himinto the cruiser.Snow, walking west on Elliot Streettoward the fire station, was holdinghis neck. I’m losing a lot of blood, hesaid before falling to his knees on thesidewalk.DiMarino applied pressure toSnow’s neck to try to stop the bleeding.Brown held her fiance’s hand ashe made gurgling sounds as he triedto speak to her. Squeeze my hand if youcan hear me, she said. He squeezedher hand several times.As Snow’s face lost color, his friendsand family “began to get very upset,yelling that they were going to killSheets,” Lynde wrote in his affidavit.The officer removed Sheets to thepolice department and placed him ina holding cell. Sheets told Lynde thathe stabbed Snow because the groupwanted to fight him.D a v i d S n o w w a s t a k e n t oBrattleboro Memorial Hospital at3 a.m., where he died in his brother’sarms, according to Wade Scottof Swanzey, N.H., who created aFacebook tribute page in his cousin’smemory.Detective Erik Johnson chargedSheets with the crime, reading himhis Miranda rights at 4:11 a.m.Sheets refused a breathalyzertest, and a search warrant wasissued authorizing a blood sample,taken the next morning at BrattleboroMemorial Hospital. According tocourt documents, Sheets admittedto the nurse that he had consumedcocaine the night before.On June 16, Sheets was arraignedand pleaded innocent in WindhamDistrict Court to a charge of seconddegreehomicide.By Vermont statute, first-degree homicideis defined as “[m]urder committedby means of poison, or by lyingin wait, or by wilful, deliberate andpremeditated killing, or committed inperpetrating or attempting to perpetratearson, sexual assault, aggravatedsexual assault, robbery or burglary.All other kinds of murder shall bemurder in the second degree.”Sheets is held without bail atSouthern State Correctional Facilityin Springfield. A status conferenceis scheduled for Monday, Aug. 31 at9 a.m. at Windham District Court.Pretrial conference and jury drawingwill take place after Nov. 5, accordingto a felony scheduling order andnotice of hearing issued June 15 byJudge Karen R. Carroll.Sheets faces a penalty of “not lessthan 20 years imprisonment,” with amaximum term of life without parole.A graveside funeral service forDavid Snow took place June 20 atEvergreen Cemetery in Winchester,N.H.In addition to Brown and Sprague,Snow leaves his mother, YvonneShippee, and her husband, Thurman,of Dummerston; his father, DavidT. Snow Sr., and his father’s wife,Wendy, of Walpole, N.H.; his daughter,Keyaira Nowell of Walpole, N.H.,and Brown’s children, Emma andKyle; brothers Devon Shippee ofDummerston and Christopher Snowof Westmoreland, N.H.; a sister, HollyShippee of Dummerston; his paternalgrandmother, Maureen Carrollof Keene, N.H., two aunts, and severalcousins.He worked for LTD Landscapingin Jamaica for a number of years. “Anavid outdoorsman, he enjoyed camping,four-wheeling, snowmobiling,and being with his friends,” his <strong>death</strong>notice read.His family and friends have left anelectronic trail of grief on social networksonline, with Brown, his fiancée,posting a tribute on her MySpacepage that includes 48 photos of Snowliving what would have been an unexceptionaland happy life: hamming itup for the camera in Price Chopper,sleeping on the couch, laughing whilegiving her a piggyback ride, sharingmoments on the swing with the kidsthey shared.Travis Sprague “is not doing tooJudy Brown has transformed her MySpace page into anelectronic shrine for her fiancé, stabbed June 15 on ElliotStreet in Brattleboro.well,” his cousin reported on theFacebook group he created. “Heis still in shock and has a lot of anger[about] the <strong>death</strong> of his brotherDavid. So all I have to say is bestwishes to my cousin Travis.”Sprague’s one-word MySpacemood status is set to “enraged.”Police arrested a homeless man,44-year-old Mark Bresland, oncharges of felony desecration of ashrine or monument. Sprague andBrown were part of a group of Snow’sfriends who knocked Bresland to theground and began kicking him afterhe had taken four cans of beer left atthe Elliot Street memorial site.Brown, on her tribute page, describesher fiancé as “a wonderfulperson and soulmate” with “a heartof gold” who “would do anything foranybody.”Her mood status?“Heartrippedout.”Editor’s note: All italicized speechin this story was created from indirectquotes in court documentsdescribing the dialogue that tookplace that night.