Mystery as Vermont Town Official and Family Found Massacred

A Vermont local official was found shot to death along with his new wife and stepson in their home over the weekend, state police have said.

Brian Crossman, his wife Erica and her 13-year-old son, Colin Taft, were found in their house Sunday morning. A relative, whose clothes were soaked in blood, called the police, waited at a nearby school and led them to the grim scene, according to local paper the Bennington Banner.

Police have ruled all three deaths homicides, but no arrests have yet been announced.

Crossman was recently elected to the select board of Pawlet, Vermont—the small town of around 1,400 people where he lived. In the role, he was part of a council responsible for monitoring the town’s spending and enacting new laws.

Brian and Erica had married just months prior, in June.

A neighbor and relative, who wished not to be named, told the Banner that the couple had been working to fix up Brian’s family farm.

“It’s hard to even make sense of what happened,” the neighbor said. “I just know three people are dead, and that’s not good.”

The five-person select board still met on Tuesday as usual, with flowers in Brian’s place at the table, NECN reported.

“Brian Crossman was a friend and neighbor, a hardworking community member who just this year stepped up to join the Pawlet Selectboard,” the board’s chairperson, Mike Beecher, said in a statement. “This tragedy that struck him and his family has also hit our community hard, and we are shaken and grieving. Our hearts go out to everyone affected by this devastating loss.”