BRATTLEBORO, Vt. (WCAX) – A Rhode Island man accused in the 2023 strangling death of a Vermont woman now wants to represent himself in the case.

Shawn Conlon has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Claudia Voight in February 2023 in her Windham home.

Police say Conlon was renting a room in Voight’s home and stopped paying her rent in late 2022, but stayed in her house. Evidence shows he was the one who attacked and killed her, according to police.

Conlon requested a new lawyer back in September, but during a court appearance on Thursday, he told the judge he now wants to defend himself.

“Your honor, I shouldn’t be here. I never so much as raised my voice to this woman. My DNA is nowhere on her. I should not be here,” Conlon said.

The judge strongly discouraged Conlon from defending himsel and now it seems he will have a new public defender, potentially delaying the case even longer.

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Many of us smelled a rat when “invitations” were sent out to residents of the area around the decommissioned and dismantled Vermont Yankee Nuclear reactor. A very suspiciously named “Good Energy Collective” was offering north of $500 for each citizen who was willing to sit through two 4-hour sessions of propaganda about how communities can choose to benefit from becoming a permanent nuclear waste storage dump.

“Hi everyone! Join us for a paid community workshop opportunity in Vernon, VT, on November 21-22, 2025. Good Energy Collective, a policy research non-profit, invites you to join us for a two-part workshop series. We want to hear your thoughts on how communities, industry, government agencies, and nongovernmental organizations can work together to determine where and how to site facilities that store spent fuel from nuclear power plants.”

Then, voila! H601 is introduced by two Vermont House reps, and no shock, neither from Windham County, the location of the now dead and not mourned Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor. For those who are too young or too new to the area to remember this, the successful fight to close Vermont Yankee was epic: many of us became deeply knowledgeable about how we power our lives, the political, health, economic, and safety problems with nuclear power, and the many reasons we knew our lives would be more secure once the reactor was shut down. Activists worked on a legislative level, we marched in every July 4 parade, we canvassed to win hearts and minds, we walked for two weeks in a cold January from Brattleboro to Montpelier. Among many other activities.

H601 changes the energy goal in Vermont from a Renewable Energy Standard, requiring Vermont to use 100 percent renewables by 2035, to a Clean Energy Standard, which includes nuclear. The bill could undo a 2006 law requiring public engagement around new nuclear plants in Vermont. It could also make changes to nuclear waste storage at the state’s former nuclear site, potentially allowing us to become a dumping ground for nuclear waste from other states.

The state Senate has also proposed S281 (2026) that proposes to study “the feasibility of constructing a nuclear power generation facility in Vermont.” In spite of the phony Good Energy Collective’s call for community input in becoming one of the nations’ permanent nuclear waste dumping sites, S281 appears to have no role for the people- those in the discussion are only proposed to be the nuclear lobby, the industry, electric companies, the Public Utilities Commission, legislators- with no requirement for legislators from the potential site of these activities, Windham County.

As the Republicans are desperately trying to kiss the posterior of the fool who is trying his best to transport our energy policy back to the 19th century, those who are still paying some lip service to climate science continue to insult our intelligence by claiming that nuclear is an economical and safe way to produce “zero carbon” energy. For a refresher on the lies of these statements:

• Nuclear energy is always expensive to build and never fast. The costs always far exceed the initial plan, and many have been scrapped because they became too costly. The Summer Nuclear station in South Carolina was abandoned in 2017 after a $9 billion investment – and guess who paid the bill? Of course, the ratepayers.

• Mining comes at a terrible price being paid by communities in the areas where uranium is extracted. This is a conclusion from a scientist in the physics department at Stanford University:

“The United States has a history of environmental inequity in which people of color and low-income communities are disproportionately subjected to environmental risks and consequent health hazards. Uranium mining is no different. Navajo Nation land, for example, is littered with tailing piles, and the United States Environmental Protection Agency has mapped 521 abandoned uranium mines on the reservation. In this regard, uranium mining serves as an avenue for continued environmental racism, and the issue demands close examination and public awareness.”

• I am no scientist, but trying to read about the process of converting uranium ore into fuel looks like it takes a large amount of energy- so zero carbon? Not so fast.

• Nuclear reactors emit radiation. The propaganda of the industry is full of “nothing to worry about – a reactor gives off as much as a banana.” Such bunk.

• And then we have the waste – a highly toxic soup that remains radioactive for 10,000 years, although the industry prefers 300 or 500 years. And nobody has arrived at a solution to waste storage that is truly safe, so the latest thinking is to dump waste in a place like the small town of Vernon, Vermont, where there are already 1,000 tons of waste from the reactor. Right by the banks of the Connecticut River.

• One of the byproducts of uranium used in nuclear reactors is plutonium – the most lethal element on the planet, and a major component of nuclear weapons.

So, as we approach the 15th sad anniversary of the multiple meltdowns at Fukushima, March 11, 2011, we are again being challenged to stand up to a powerful industry and demand a voice. The reactors at Fukushima are still leaking high levels of radiation, and the worst of the damage has not been controlled – and it appears that nobody knows how to do so, or it would have been contained by now. Congress allocated billions of dollars to the nuclear industry: even tried the slogan “MAKE ATOMS GREAT AGAIN.”

At a time when the the national Republicans are attempting to steal all the power – including to rob us of a free and fair election system – many of us who live in Vermont have thought we had some ability to speak to the power of our state government. If this bill heads to the House, and if it passes, it is certain that if Phil Scott is in office he will be delighted to sign it. So H601, that bypasses any public engagement in the siting of new nuclear reactors or waste dumps, could become law in a Vermont in a move to disempower citizens and edge us even closer to the fascism many of us are fighting every day.

If you are concerned, contact your legislators – the people need a voice in energy policy.