The bodies of three family members were discovered shot to death in their home in rural Vermont on Sunday.
Vermont State Police on Tuesday identified the victims as Brian Crossman Sr., 46, his wife Erica Crossman, née Pawlusiak, 41, and her 13-year-old son Colin Taft.
Police received a call early Sunday morning about a suspicious person in the small Rutland County town of Pawlet. The police’s subsequent investigation led them to a residence on Vermont Route 133, where they found the dead bodies in what they described as “suspicious circumstances.”
Autopsies conducted by the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office in Burlington confirmed the suspicion of a triple homicide.
“Brian Crossman’s cause of death was gunshot wounds to the head and torso, Erica Crossman’s was a gunshot wound to the head, and Colin Taft’s was multiple gunshot wounds,” Vermont State Police said in a statement.
Police said earlier on Sunday that detectives’ initial work indicated this was an isolated event with no identified threat to the community.
Detectives have continued to canvass the neighborhood and conduct interviews to piece together what happened inside the family’s home over the weekend.
No one is in custody in connection with the homicides, Vermont State Police said on Tuesday, and no update has been posted since.
The police investigation involves multiple units, including the Bureau of Criminal Investigations, the Crime Scene Search Team, and the Victim Services Unit.
Police have not yet released any information about a possible motive.
Well-Known Figure
One of the victims, Brian Crossman, was a well-known figure in the area.
He was elected to the Pawlet Select Board in March and was slated to serve a one-year term. He had been appointed as a liaison to buildings and development and to the town’s highway department, according to the town’s website.
The select board’s meeting proceeded as planned on Tuesday evening, albeit in somber circumstances: a bouquet was placed where Crossman usually sat.
Mike Beecher, chairperson of the five-member board, started the meeting by reading a statement.
“Brian Crossman was a friend and a neighbor, a hardworking community member, who, just this year, stepped up to join the Pawlet Select Board. This tragedy that struck him and his family also hit our community very hard,” Beecher said.
“We are all shaken and grieving. Our hearts go out to everyone affected by this devastating loss.”
Pawlet is a small town with a population of about 1,400, some 50 miles north of the Massachusetts border on the New York state line.